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OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

A BIOGRAPHY 
, BY 

WASHINGTON IRVING 



EDITED, WITH INTROD UCTION, NO TES, 
AND QUESTIONS 

BY 

H. E. COBLENTZ, A.M. 

TEACHER OF ENGLISH IN THE SOUTH DIVISION HIGH SCHOOL, 
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN 



BOSTO:Nr, U.S.A. 

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

1904 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Cepies Received 

MAR 9 1904 

„ Copyright E-fltry , 

CLASS 0L /Xc. No, 
^ / ^ 67 

COPY ar 



Copyright, 1904, 
By D. C. Heath & Co. 






EDITOR'S PREFACE 

In the preparation of Washington Irving's Life of Gold- 
srftith the editor has often recalled Scott's Antiquarian, who, 
in preparing some precious manuscript for the press, made 
"notes on all that was dark, and all that was clear, and all 
that was neither dark nor clear." There was a strong tempta- 
tion to annex Boswell's Life of Johnson^ and to make a con- 
temporary historical and literary document as large as the 
book itself. The wealth of information with which to over- 
annotate the book is so great that an editor of the Life feels 
guilty in making so few notes. Yet the editor hopes that he 
has erred, if at all, on the side of a minimum of notes. He 
remembers well that many years ago, when he first read 
Irving's Goldsmith in a well-thumbed high school copy, he 
found no notes, nor did he miss them. The pleasure that 
he derived from the book was largely due to Irving, and to 
the fact that the book did not have to be read as a school 
exercise. As a teacher, he has found that boys and girls 
have read the book before it was put " on the list," and that 
the absence of notes was no great loss. Since the book is now 
assigned for reading, let it be read, not studied in the intensive 
way. The notes and questions are intended as a staff, not as 
a crutch ; and if the staff is not needed, let Irving lead the 
pupil. 

H. E. C. 

Milwaukee, 
January 1, 1904. 

ill 



CONTENTS 

m 

PAGE 

Life of Washington Irving vii 

Appreciations of Irving xvii 

Books relating to Irving xxiii 

Books relating to Goldsmith xxiv 

Contemporary Literary History xxv 

Irving's Preface xxix 

LIFE OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH 1 

Explanatory Notes 269 

Explanatory Index 276 

Critical Notes and Suggestive Questions . . . 287 
Questions for Review 298 



MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 

Portrait of Oliver Goldsmith .... Frontispiece 

Sir Joshua Keynolds 

FACING PAGE 

Portrait of Washington Irving ..... xv 

After a daguerreotype by Plumb, about 1850 

Portrait of Samuel Johnson 86 »^ 

Sir Joshua Eeynolds 

Nos. 1 AND 2, Brick Court, London 144 

Mary Horneck, " The Jessamt Bride " . . . . 154 

Goldsmith's Burial-place 260 

Diagram of the Poets' Corner, Westminster Ab^et . 261 

London in 1780 296 



VI 



WASHINGTON IRVING 

Washington Irving was born in New York City, April 3, 
1783, the year that the British troops evacuated New York. 
Bm was not baptized, however, until after General Washington 
and his army took possession of the city. " Washington's work 
is ended," said Irving's mother, " and the child shall be named 
after him." When Irving was six weeks old, a Scotch maid- 
servant of the Irvings, with her charge in her arms, followed 
the first President of the United States into a shop, and said, 
*' Please, your Honor, here's a bairn was named for you." Wash- 
ington placed his hand upon the boy's head, and gave him a 
blessing. "That blessing," said Irving, in after years, "at- 
tended me through life." 

The Irving household, although strong in family affection, 
was marked by a striking contrast in the parents. The father, 
a Scotchman, a stern Presbyterian, a loyal patriot through the 
American Revolution, was, as became a descendant from the 
armor-bearer of Robert Bruce, a strict disciplinarian. Irving's 
mother, on the other hand, had traits that are more evident in 
her son : gentleness, cheerfulness, vivacity, and sympathy. The 
mischievous disposition of the boy probably called forth so many 
stern rebukes from his father, that Irving thought the paternal 
training was too Puritanical. " I was led," he says " to believe 
that everything that was pleasant was wicked." From his in- 
dulgent mother he received only the kindly admonition, " Wash- 
ington, I wish you were good ! " 

His roguish propensity and indisposition to study led him 
from the prescribed rules and courses of study in the schools. 
" In school," we are told by one of his biographers, " he feasted 
on travels and tales, but hated arithmetic. He wrote composi- 
tions for boys, who, in return, worked sums for him." He 
revelled in Sindhad the Sailor, Gulliver's Travels, Robinson 
Crusoe, and Tlie World Displayed; the last a book of voyages 

vii 



VIU WASHINGTON IRVING 

that fired his youthful fancy with the wish to go to the ends of 
the earth. In his later years he was to become a wanderer, and 
to write many interesting books about foreign lands. But all 
was not fancy and lassitude in Irving's school days ; he early 
showed a strength of character that marked him as one of na- 
ture's gentlemen. We learn with pleasure that one of his teach- 
ers, admiring the straightforward truthfulness of the boy in 
admitting a fault, dubbed him "the General." His kindness 
of heart and sensitiveness to suffering would not allow him to 
see corporal punishment in the school, so when some unlucky 
schoolmate was to receive a whipping, Irving was permitted to 
leave the schoolroom. 

Declining to spend his time at Columbia University, as his 
brothers had done, he entered, in his seventeenth year, a law 
oflSce. He spent some time in migrating from one law office to 
another until 1801, when he became a clerk in the office of 
Josiah 0. Hoffman, one member of whose family was to have 
a great influence over Irving's whole life. As a law student 
Irving was not successful. He was a " heedless student," spend- 
ing more time over literature than over law. That he was 
finally admitted to the bar, some years later, is probably due 
more to the kindness of the examiners than to Irving's knowl- 
edge of law. 

Irving's indisposition to study, both in school and at law, is 
in some measure accounted for by his ill-health. He was so 
far from robust that he was kept in the open air. It was dur- 
ing this period in the law offices that he began his wanderings 
in the Hudson and the Mohawk VaUey regions — regions that 
are now known best because Irving discovered their beauties and 
their legendary lore, and put them in enduring literary form. 
On one of these trips he went as far north as Montreal. The 
trip is hardly worth mentioning except for one curious and 
pleasing incident. At Caughnawaga, the party, composed of 
Josiah Hoffman, his family, and Irving, was received by some 
Indians. Irving was persuaded to go through the ceremony 
of exchanging names with the savages. The significant name 
they gave him was " Vomonte," which means "Good to Every- 
body." It was in these wanderings that Irving stored his mind 
for his future tales ; the little journeys exercised " the most 



WASHINGTON IRVING IX 

witching effect upon his imagination " — an effect that became 
apparent in the bewitching tales that Irving was to write about 
the river and valley of Hendrick Hudson. 

In 1804, Irving's health becoming worse, his brothers de- 
cided to send him abroad. As Irving was helped aboard the 
ship, the captain remarked, " That chap will go overboard before 
we get across." Contrary to the captain's prophecy, the voyage 
did Irving good. He spent nearly two years in delightful 
travel in Europe, feeding his fancy on Old World traditions. 
He "Eiad learned to love the storied past of his native state, and 
he looked forward to learning something of the legend-haunted 
places of Europe. "Europe," he says, in the "Author's Ac- 
count of Himself" in the Sketch Book, — " Europe held forth 
all the charms of storied and poetical associations. They were 
to be seen in the masterpieces of art, the refinements of highly 
cultivated society, the quaint peculiarities of ancient and local 
custom. My native country was full of youthful promise; 
Europe was rich in the accumulated treasures of age. Her 
very ruins told the history of times gone by, and every moulder- 
ing stone was a chronicle. I longed to wander over the scenes 
of renowned achievement — to tread, as it were, in the footsteps 
of antiquity, to loiter about the ruined castle, to meditate on 
the falling tower — to escape, in short, from the commonplace 
realities of the present, and lose myself among the shadowy 
grandeurs of the past." Leaving Bordeaux in June, Irving 
went to the Mediterranean, where, off Messina, he saw Nelson's 
fleet, ready for Trafalgar ; thence he went to Genoa, to Sicily, 
to Naples, to Rome, where he met the American painter, Wash- 
ington Allston; then he turned north to Paris, from which 
place, in excuse of his neglected home correspondence, he wrote, 
" I am a young man and in Paris " ; and finally he crossed over 
to London, where he saw and enjoyed John Kemble and Mrs. 
Siddons, noted actors of the day. Restored in health, Irving 
embarked, January, 1806, for New York, landing there in 
February. 

Previous to his trip to Europe Irving had contributed some 
juvenile efforts to the Morning Chronicle, a paper edited by 
his brother Peter. The contributions, smart criticisms on the 
drama and the actors of the day, had increased Irving's "pro- 



X WASHINGTON IRVING 

pensity for belles lettres.'^ Shortly after his return to America 
an opportunity was given him to write articles for the Salma- 
gundi (1807), a periodical owned by James K. Paulding and 
William Irving. The paper was suggested, perhaps, by the 
Tatler and the Spectator of Addison and Steele, but it was 
droller and more waggish. The Tatler was written " to expose 
the false acts of life, to pull off the disguise of cunning, vanity, 
and affectation, and to recommend a general simplicity in our 
dress, our discourse, and our behavior " ; the Salmagundi was 
written "to instruct the young, to reform the old, to correct 
the town, and to castigate the age." The periodical was short- 
lived, running through only twenty numbers, but it tickled the 
town, and gave Irving a cue for his next attempt. 

One of the papers Irving wrote for the Salmagundi pre- 
tended to be a chapter from " The Chronicles of the Kenowned 
and Ancient City of Gotham." This squib was used as a basis 
for a burlesque of a very pompous and pretentious handbook, 
just issued, called A Picture of New York. Irving took to the 
humor of the situation, wrote his first notable book, A History 
of New York (1809) by Diedrich Knickerbocker, and gravely 
dedicated it to the New York Historical Society. Some of the 
descendants of the old Dutch burghers were indignant at the 
liberty taken with their honest, plodding, austere ancestors, 
but the rest of the world accepted the book in the kindly humor 
and playful parody with which it was written. As it was a 
readable book — at that time a rare thing in American litera- 
ture — it became immensely popular. Charles Dudley Warner 
praises it as " one of the few masterpieces of humor," and as- 
serts that it has entered the popular mind as no other book ever 
has. This is indeed high praise, but even to-day, when our 
American humor is broader and keener (but not so kind), 
Knickerbocker's History probably stands first in our row of 
humorous books. In England it also received a favorable 
reception. Sir Walter Scott, who read it aloud to his family, 
pronounced it " a most excellently jocose history," 

Irving began the History of New York in a joyous and happy 
spirit, but completed it in a time of sorrow — a sorrow that was 
to follow him through life. He was in love with Miss Matilda 
Hoffman, the daughter of his law monitor, Judge Hoffman, and 



WASHINGTON IRVING XI 

their marriage had been agreed on. Suddenly she died at the 
age of eighteen. Irving, who at that time was twenty-six years 
old, never recovered from the blow, and never ceased to regret 
his loss. In after years, when writing of his early love, he said, 
" For years I could not even mention the name ; but her image 
was constantly before me, and I dreamt of her incessantly." 
Irving never married. He always carried with him in his jour- 
neys, Matilda Hoffman's Bible and Prayer Book, and at his 
death, when his desk was opened, there were found among his 
prtVate papers, her picture and a lock of her hair. It is pleas- 
ant to know that Irving bore his sorrow so manfully, and that 
his love affair was not a thing of mere sentiment, but had its 
roots deep in the strong character of the man. 

For ten years after the publication of the History of New 
York, Irving put forth no book. As a matter of fact, especially 
in his earlier life, he had little of the decisive element in choos- 
ing a career. This may be accounted for by the lack of a literary 
atmosphere in New York. Irving was to be the pioneer of the 
New World of Letters ; he had no really worthy associates to 
help him blaze out the trail, and hence he went forward much 
more cautiously into the undiscovered realms of American litera- 
ture than he would have done had he been surrounded by 
experienced helpers and guides. His brothers, encouraged by 
his success with Knickerbocker, made him an associate partner 
in their hardware business in New York and Liverpool, intend- 
ing that he should share in the profits, but not in the work, so 
that he could devote his time to literary pursuits. The War of 
1812 coming on, Irving was called on for the first of a long list 
of services that he was to perform for his country. He was 
made one of a committee of business men who went to Washing- 
ton in 1812 to seek measures of relief from the business depres- 
sion resulting from the war. In 1814, after the British troops 
had wantonly destroyed the capitol, Irving, although deprecating 
the war, offered his services to Governor Tompkins of New York, 
on whose staff he remained for four months, as aid and military 
secretary. After peace was declared, Irving, altogether uncon- 
scious of the new influence coming into his life, made another 
visit, in 1815, to England to see his brother Peter. 

He intended to remain abroad only a short time, but as it 



Xll WASHINGTON IRVING 

happened his visit extended into a residence of seventeen years. 
The immediate cause for his delay in returning home was the 
ilhiess of his brother, whose business he was called upon to man- 
age. For two years he tried to avert the failure of the Irving 
brothers, but owing to trying financial times and a consequent 
depressed business condition, he was unable to prevent the fail- 
ure which occurred in 1818. This event determined Irving's 
career ; he now resolved to make writing his profession. He 
had offers to enter commercial or public life again, but having 
made little' progress in both law and trade, he wisely put aside 
briefs and bills, and turned to literature for support and pleas- 
ure. Having made his decision for a literary career, Irving 
wisely chose to remain in London ; for, although the most loyal 
of Americans, he justly felt that the atmosphere of England, 
more than the atmosphere of New York, was conducive to liter- 
ary efforts. However loyal he was to his native land, he was 
equally loyal to the dictates of his literary sense. To be thrown 
into the society of such writers as Campbell, Rogers, Hallam, 
Milman, Moore, and Scott meant much to a man of Irving's 
shifting and hesitating temperament. In such environment, and 
amid such associates, he was called upon to do his best work. 

The first book Irving wrote in England was the Sketch Book 
(1819) by "Geoffrey Crayon." The first number of the Sketch 
Book — for it was issued serially — was published in America in 
1819, and the series was completed in September, 1820. It is 
not difficult for us to-day to see why the book should have re- 
ceived immediate and remarkable favor, but it is well for us to 
remember that Irving was an American, and that Sydney Smith 
had asked, not long before, " Who reads an American book ? " 
In fact, Murray, the great publisher and authors' friend, flatly 
refused to publish the Sketch Book until he was persuaded to 
do so by Sir Walter Scott. Irving was to write other books 
that strike a higher level, but he never wrote another book 
that contained two such immortal characters as Ichabod Crane 
and Rip Van Winkle : they are the prize characters of American 
fiction. 

The success of the Sketch Book tempted Irving to write 
other books somewhat similar in tone. Bracebridge Hall 
(1822) and Tales of a Traveller (1824), following the well- 



WASHINGTON IRVING XIU 

worked vein of the Sketch Book, added but little to living's 
fame. The public and the critics, never long indulgent with 
an author who repeats his work, found fault because Irving did 
not cease writing sketches, and demanded that he should write 
a novel or some more sustained work. Irving doughtily replied 
that his work was his own, and that he intended to stick to his 
" own line of writing." Nevertheless, he sought a new fount 
of inspiration in another land, rich in historic and legendary- 
themes — the land of Columbus. 

4n 1826, Irving, at his own solicitation, was made a member 
of the American Legation at Madrid. His first literary work 
in Spain, undertaken at the suggestion of Alexander Everett, 
then our Minister to Spain, was an attempt to translate ISfava- 
rette's Voyages of Columbus. Irving found the book little to 
his taste, and soon gave up the idea of translating it. He was 
pleased, however, with the theme of the book, and began collect- 
ing material for his Life of Columbus (1828). He had unusual 
opportunities to gather new data and facts for the Life in the 
archives of the Spanish government, and he made good use of 
the opportunity. That Irving, who had done nothing so serious 
in literature as to write the life of a great man, sliould write a 
biography of the discoverer of America, a book that even to- 
day holds an eminent place, probably the first place, in all the 
lives of Columbus, is evidence of his fitness for writing biogra- 
phy, and of his sterling qualities as an investigator. Irving 
took infinite pains with the book ; investigated every fact and 
theory ; examined every date ; rewrote parts of his manuscript 
as many times as new material came to hand ; and above all, he 
made a readable biography. Some years later Irving completed 
his work on the Life of Columbus by publishing a less notable 
companion book. The Companions of Columbus (1831). 

It was quite natural that Irving, in his investigations in 
Columbian literature, and in his intercourse with the Spanish 
people, should find a wealth of legendary lore that he could 
readily use. The Chronicles of the Conquest of Granada 
(1829), which Irving regarded as his best work, is just the sort 
of book that one would expect him to take great pleasure in 
writing. It is historic in fundamentals, yet through it runs the 
play of humor, the genial element of legendary fiction, and the 



XIV WASHINGTON IRVING 

glamour of the writer who delights in coloring dry historic facti 
with a lively human touch. Irving had written an Americai 
sketch book, and in Bracebridge Hall, an English sketch book 
this was a Spanish sketch book. 

The Alhambra (1832) is generally considered the mos 
pleasing and the best of Irving's books. Seldom are travel 
lers the authors of enduring books about foreign countries 
but Irving had imbibed the very spirit of Spain and of thi 
romantic palace of Alhambra. From the palace he wrote 
" Here, then, I am nestled in one of the most remarkable 
romantic, and delicious spots in the world. ... It absolutel; 
appears to me like a dream, or as if I am spell-bound in somi 
fairy place." Out of this fairy place, Irving made one of th^ 
most delightful medleys of travels, tales, character sketches, an( 
descriptive sketches, in the English language. 

Irving left Spain in 1829 to return to London as the Secre 
tary of the American Legation at the Court of St. James. Her 
he was received with the honor of old and new friendships tha 
his established literary fame now brought him. He was hon 
ored with a gold medal from the Royal Society, and was givei 
the degree of Doctor of Civil Law by Oxford University. Hi 
stay in England, however, was not long. He had been ii 
Europe now for seventeen years, and he longed to see again thi 
old, familiar scenes, so in 1832 he returned to America. 

The welcome that his fellow-citizens gave him was in keeping 
with his position as the head of American literature — a positioi 
that was to be his as long as he lived. He was banqueted 
honored at public gatherings, and offered public ofl&ces withii 
the gift of his countrymen. Irving preferred, however, to settL 
down somewhere out of the bustle of life. Though a bachelor 
he had need of a home because of dependent relatives (hii 
brother Peter and several nieces lived with him), who looke( 
to his generosity for their support. What could be more natura 
than that he should select a home in his familiar Hudson Rive 
valley? At Tarrytown (now Irvington) he bought an ol( 
Dutch stone cottage, once the home of Baltus Van Tassel of th( 
Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and made " Sunnyside," which wai 
to be his home until his death. Here he kept an open, generous 
and hospitable house ; here he received many noted visitors 




'^y^-5^^^^^^^1-^'^^^ c/'if-taye<^<7 






WASHINGTON IRVING XY 

among others Daniel Webster and Louis Bonaparte, afterward 
Napoleon III., and near here he lies buried. Those who wish 
to know of " Sunnyside " may read much about it in one of 
the last of Irving's books — Wolfert^s Boost (1855). 

Irving was by nature so much of a traveller that the fireside 
was not to have too strong a hold on him. Only a short time 
after his return from Europe, he travelled through the far West 
with some government officials, who were to make Indian 
treaties. This Western tour resulted in Irving's least noteworthy 
bodks. Astoria (1836), named for the great merchant, John 
Jacob Astor, was written for the most part by Pierre M. Irv- 
ing, his nephew and biographer. Irving's other Western tales, 
travels, and sketches. The Tour of the Prairies (1835), and 
The Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837), are little read 
to-day. 

The Tour was issued as part of a book entitled Crayon 
Miscellanies: the miscellanies being reminiscences of Irving's 
sojourns in England and in Spain. It is in this book that we 
read the delightful account of Irving's visit to Abbotsford, the 
home of Sir Walter Scott, and to Newstead Abbey, the home of 
Lord Byron. 

After the tour through the West, Irving passed his time 
serenely at "Sunnyside." But he was not inactive. In 1838, 
a year somewhat memorable in his life, he declined the nomina- 
tion for mayor of New York City ; refused to run for Congress ; 
declined a seat in Van Buren's Cabinet as Secretary of the Navy ; 
resigned, in favor of W. H. Prescott, a cherished project of 
writing a Conquest of Mexico; and began his Life of Wash- 
ington. The following two years are of little moment. He 
^ wrote a now-forgotten Life of Margaret Davidson, and con- 
tributed monthly articles to the Knickerbocker Magazine. 
This was one of Irving's fallow periods ; a time which was to 
be followed by a rich harvest of good work. 

In 1842 Irving was again called upon to serve his country 
in another way than in quietly writing the life of its first Presi- 
dent. At the suggestion of Daniel Webster, he was appointed 
Minister to Spain. 

Irving, who had now become attached so firmly to " Sunny- 
side," and who had such a distaste for public affairs, accepted 



Xvi WASHINGTON IRVING 

the offer only because he felt that public duty compelled him to 
do so. Spain, at that time stirred by civil strife and insurrec- 
tion, was a trying post for any Minister, but Irving, who had 
in his former residence there endeared himself to the volatile 
Spanish people, directed our affairs with entire satisfaction to 
both countries. 

Amid these factional difficulties and diplomatic disputes, he 
found little time for literary affairs. Now in his sixty-fourth 
year, and desiring to finish his Washington, he resigned his 
mission with the knowledge that he had served his country- 
well in Spain, and in 1846 returned to "Sunnyside." 

The remaining thirteen years of Irving's life were largely cen- 
tred in his Washington (1855-1859), but he also published, 
during the last years, his Life of Goldsmith (1849), Mahomet 
and His Successors (1849), and Wolfe7^t's Boost (1855). 

The Life of Goldsmith is of only relative importance in 
Irving's work^ but as it is the immediate object of our study, it 
may be well to learn something about its publication. The 
circumstances of publishing the Life are best told by Irving's 
publisher, Mr. Putnam. He says : " Sitting at my desk one 
day, Irving was looking at Forster's clever work, which I pro- 
posed to re-print. He remarked that it was a favorite theme of 
his, and he had half a mind to pursue it, and extend into a volume 
a sketch he had once made for an edition of Goldsmith's works. 
I expressed a hope that he would do so ; and within sixty days 
the first sheets of Irving's Goldsmith were in the printer's 
hands. The press (as he says) was ' dogging at his heels,' for 
in two or three weeks the volume was published." Thus was 
conceived, written, and published one of the most delightful 
biographies is the English language. 

After 1850 Irving's attention was almost entirely given to 
completing his Life of Washington. "All I fear," he said, 
"is to fail in health, and fail in completing this work at the 
same time. If I can only live to finish it, I would be willing 
to die the next moment. I think I can make it a most interest- 
ing book, if I had only ten more years of life." Nine more 
years were allotted him. The fourth and final volume of the 
Washington was published in the year Irving died at "Sunny- 
side," November 28, 1859. 



WASHINGTON IRVING XVU 



APPRECIATIONS OF IRVING 

I had half an hour one day last week at Sunnyside, the resi- 
dence of Washington Irving. Such a half hour ought to have 
been one of the pleasantest in one's life, and so it was. The 
pleasure began before reaching the door-step, or taking the old 
man's hand — in the thousand associations of the place — for a 
visit to Sunnyside is equal to a pilgrimage to Abbotsford, 

The quaint, grotesque old dwelling, with its old-fashioned 
gables, stood as solemn and sleepy among the trees as if it had 
been built to personate old Rip Van Winkle at his nap. The 
grounds were covered with brown and yellow leaves, with here 
and there a red squirrel running and rustling among them, as 
if pretending to be the true redbreast that laid the leaves over 
the babes in the wood. 

The morning had been rainy, and the afternoon showed only 
a few momentary openings of clear sky : so that I saw Sunny- 
side without the sun. But under the heavy clouds there was 
something awe-inspiring in the sombre view of those grand hills 
with their many-colored forests, and of Hendrik Hudson's an- 
cient river still flowing at the feet of the ancient Palisades. 

The mansion of Sunnyside has been standing for twenty-three 
years : but when first its sharp-angled roof edged its way up 
among the branches of the old woods, the region was far more 
a solitude than now; for at that time our busy author had 
secluded himself from almost everybody but one near neighbor ; 
while he has since unwittingly gathered around him a little com- 
munity of New York merchants, whose elegant county seats, 
opening into each other by mutual intertwining roads, form 
what looks like one vast and free estate, called on the time- 
tables of the railroad by the honorary name of Irvington. 
But even within the growing circle of his many neighbors, the 
genial old Knickerbocker still lives in true retirement, enter- 
taining his guests within echo distance of Sleepy Hollow — 
without thought, and almost without knowledge, 

how the great world 



Is praising him far off." 
Mr. Irving is not so old-looking as one would expect who 



XVlll WASHINGTON IRVING 

knew his age. I fancied him as in the winter of life ; I found 
him only in its Indian summer. He came down stairs, and 
walked through the hall into the back parlor with a firm and 
lively step that might well have made one doubt whether he 
had truly attained his seventy-seventh year. He was suffering 
from asthma, and was muffled against the damp air with a 
Scotch shawl, wrapped like a great loose scarf around his neck ; 
but as he took his seat in the old arm-chair, and, despite his 
hoarseness and troubled chest, began an unexpectedly vivacious 
conversation, he made me almost forget that I was the guest of 
an old man long past his " three score years and ten." 

But what should one talk about who had only half an hour 
with Washington Irving'? I ventured the question, — 

" Now that you have laid aside your pen, which of your books 
do you look back upon with most pleasure 1 " 

He immediately replied, " I scarcely look with full satisfac- 
tion upon any ; for they do not seem what they might have 
been. I often wish that I could have twenty years more, to 
take them down from the shelf, one by one, and write them 
over." 

He spoke of his daily habits of writing, before he had made 
the resolution to write no more. His usual hours for literary 
work were from morning till noon. But, although he had gen- 
erally found his mind most vigorous in the early part of the 
day, he had always been subject to moods and caprices, and 
could never tell, when he took up the pen, how many hours 
would pass before he would lay it down. 

" But," said he, " these capricious periods, of heat and glow 
of composition, have been the happiest hours of my life. I have 
never found in anything outside of the four walls of my study, 
any enjoyment equal to sitting at my writing desk with a clean 
page, a new theme, and a mind awake." 

His literary employments, he remarked, had always been more 
like entertainments than tasks. 

" Some writers," said he, " appear to have been independent 
of moods. Sir Walter Scott, for instance, had great powers of 
writing, and could work almost at any time ; so could Crabbe — 
but with this difference : Scott always, and Crabbe seldom, 
wrote well." 



WASHINGTON IRVING XIX 

"I remember," said he, "taking breakfast one morning with 
Eogers, Moore, and Crabbe. The conversation turned on Lord 
Byron's poetic moods : Crabbe said that, however it might be 
with Lord Byron, as for himself, he could write as well one time 
as another. But," said Irving, with a twinkle of humor at 
recalling the incident, "Crabbe has written a great deal that 
nobody can read." 

He mentioned that while living in Paris he went a long period 
without being able to write. "I sat down repeatedly," said 
he,-" with pen and ink, but could invent nothing worth putting 
on the paper. At length, I told my friend, Tom Moore, who 
dropped in one morning, that now, after long waiting, I had the 
mood, and would hold it, and work it out as long as it would 
last, until I had wrung my brain dry. So I began to write 
shortly after breakfast, and continued, without noticing how the 
time was passing, until Moore came in again at four in the after- 
noon — when I had completely covered the table with freshly 
written sheets. I kept the mood almost without interruption 
for six weeks." 

I asked which of his books was the result of this frenzy : he 
replied, " Bracebridge Hall." 

" None of your works," I remarked, " are more charming than 
the Biography of Goldsmith." 

" Yet that was written," said he, " even more rapidly than 
the other." He then added : — 

" When I have been engaged on a continuous work, I have 
often been obliged to rise in the middle of the night, light my 
lamp, and write an hour or two, to relieve my mind ; and now 
that I write no more, I am sometimes compelled to get up in 
the same way to read." 

— Theodore Tilton, in The Independent, November 24, 1859. 

For my part, I know of nothing like it. I have read no 
biographical memoir which carries forward the reader so de- 
lightfully and with so little tediousness of recital or reflection. 
I never take it up without being tempted to wish that Irving 
had written more works of the kind ; but this could hardly be ; 
for where could he have found another Goldsmith 1 

— W. C. Bryant, before N. Y. Historical Society, April 3, 1860, 



XX WASHINGTON IRVING 

For philosophical history Irving had no aptitude. Even in 
biography he appears at his best where the details are few, and 
where he grasps the idea of his subject rather by his sympathies 
than by his intentions of cause and effect. In the Life of 
Goldsmith he has given us one of the most charming biogra- 
phies ever written. His success, apart from his felicity of style, 
is owing to his perfect sympathy with the man. A more logical 
mind would be puzzled with the inconsistencies of Goldsmith's 
character, and become entangled in metaphysical theories for 
their reconciliation. Irving reconciles all these diiferences in 
his heart rather than in his head, and makes us forget them by 
forgetting them himself. — D. J. Hill's Washington Irving. 

It may be doubted whether Irving's Goldsmith or his Wash- 
ington can be accepted as the Goldsmith or the Washington who 
once trod the earth ; yet his Goldsmith and Washington, and 
the other personages whom he introduced into their stories, are 
at least living human beings. His work is perhaps halfway 
between history and fiction ; imaginative history is perhaps the 
best name for it. As usual, he was preoccupied almost as much 
with a desire to write charmingly as with a purpose to write 
truly ; but in itself this desire was beautifully true. Through- 
out, one feels, Irving wrote as well as he could, and he knew 
how to write better than almost any contemporary Englishman. 
— Barrett Wendell's Literary History of America. 

AV"e have always fancied that there was a strong resemblance 
between Goldsmith and Irving. They both look at human nature 
from the same generous point of view, with the same kindly 
sympathies and the same tolerant philosophy. They have the 
same quick perception of the ludicrous, and the same tender 
simplicity in the pathetic. There is the same quiet vein of 
humor in both, and the same cheerful spirit of hopefulness. 
You are at a loss to conceive how either of them can ever have 
had an enemy ; and as for jealousy and malice, and all that 
brood of evil passions which beset the path of fame so thickly, 
you feel that there can be no resting-place for them in bosoms 
like theirs. Yet each preserves his individuality as distinctly 
as if there were no points of resemblance between them. Ir- 
ving's style is as though Goldsmith had never written, and his 



WASHINGTON IRVING XXI 

pictures have that freshness about them which nothing but life- 
studies can give. He has written no poem, no Traveller, no 
Deserted Village, no exquisite ballad like the Hermit, no little 
stanzas of unapproachable pathos like Woman. But how much 
real, poetry and how much real pathos has he not written. We 
do not believe that there was ever such a description of the song 
of a bird, as his description of the soaring of a lark in Buckthorn ; 
and the poor old widow in the Sketch Book, who, the first 
Sunday after her son's burial, comes to church with a few bits 
of Jblack silk and ribbon about her, the only external emblem of 
mourning which her poverty allows her to make, is a picture 
that we can never look at through his simple and graphic 
periods without sobbing like a child. Poet he is, and that too 
of the best and noblest kind, for he stores our memories with 
lovely images and our hearts with human aff'ections. If you 
would learn to be kinder and truer, if you would learn to bear 
life's burdens manfully, and make for yourself sunshine where 
half your fellow-men see nothing but shadows and gloom, read 
and meditate Goldsmith and Irving. 

— G. W. Greene's Biographical Studies. 

Every reader has his first book. I mean to say one book 
among all others, which in early youth first fascinates his im- 
agination, and at once excites and satisfies the desires of his 
mind. To me this first book was the Sketch Book of Washing- 
ton Irving. I was a schoolboy when it was published, and 
read each succeeding number with ever-increasing wonder and 
delight; spell-bound by its pleasant humor, its melancholy 
tenderness, its atmosphere of reverie, nay, even by its gray-brown 
covers, the shaded letters of the titles, and the fair, clean type, 
which seemed an outward symbol of the style. 

How many delightful books the same author has given us, 
written before and since — volumes of history and fiction, most 
of which illustrate his native land, and some of which illumine 
it, and make the Hudson, I will not say as classic, but as ro- 
mantic as the Rhine. Yet still the charm of the Sketch Book 
remains unbroken ; the old fascination still lingers about it ; 
and whenever I open its pages, I open also that mysterious door 
which leads back into the haunted chambers of youth. 



XXll WASHINGTON IRVING 

Many years afterwards, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. 
Irving in Spain, and found the author, whom I had loved, re- 
peated in the man. The same playful humor ; the same touches 
of sentiment ; the same poetic atmosphere ; and, what I ad- 
mired still more, the entire absence of all literary jealousy, of 
all that mean avarice of fame, which counts what is given to 
another as so much taken from one's self — 

" And rustling hears in every breeze, 
The laurels of Miltiades." 

At this time Mr. Irving was at Madrid, engaged upon his 
Life of Columbus ; and if the work itself did not bear ample 
testimony to his zealous and conscientious labor, I could do so 
from personal observation. He seemed to be always at work. 
" Sit down," he would say ; " I will talk with you in a moment, 
but I must first finish this sentence." 

One summer morning, passing his house at the early hour of 
six, I saw his study window already wide open. On my men- 
tioning it to him afterwards, he said: "Yes, I am always at 
my work as early as six." Since then I have often remembered 
that sunny morning and that open window, so suggestive of his 
sunny temperament and his open heart, and equally so of his 
patient and persistent toil; and have recalled those striking 
words of Dante : — 

" Seated upon down, 
Or in his bed, man cometh not to fame, 
Withouten which, whoso his life consumes. 
Such vestige of himself on earth shall leave. 
As smoke in air, and in the water foam." 

— Henry W. Longfellow before the Massachusetts Historical 
Society, December 15, 1859, 

He wrote with such a charm and grace of expression, that 
the mere fascination of his style would often prove powerful 
enough to keep the reader intent upon his pages when the sub- 
ject itself might not happen to interest him. His humor was 
of a peculiar quality, always delicate in character, and yet 
enriched with a certain quaint poetic coloring, which added 
greatly to its effect. His graver writings have no less beauty, 



WASHINGTON IRVING XXIU 

and several of them prove that, as is often the case with men 
who possess a large share of humor, he was no less a master in 
the pathetic, and knew how to touch the heart. His Life of 
Oliver Goldsmith always seemed to us one of the most de- 
lightful works of biography ever written — we doubt whether 
Goldsmith himself, even if he had been so fortunate in his 
subject, could have executed his task so well. 

— From an obituary notice in the New York Evening Post, Novem- 
ber 29, 1859. 

What Irving ? thrice welcome, warm heart and fine brain ; 

You bring back the happiest spirit from Spain, 

And the gravest sweet humor, that ever were there 

Since Cervantes met death in his gentle despair. 

Nay, don't be embarrassed, nor look so beseeching, 

I shan't run directly against my own preaching. 

And, having just laughed at their Raphaels and Dantes, 

Go to setting you up beside matchless Cervantes ; 

But allow me to speak what I honestly feel, — 

To a true poet-heart add the fun of Dick Steele, 

Throw in all of Addison, minus the chill. 

With the whole of that partnership's stock and good will, 

Mix well, and, while stirring, hum o'er, as a spell, 

The fine old English Gentleman ; simmer it well, 

Sweeten just to your own private liking, then strain, 

That only the finest and clearest remain ; 

Let it stand out of doors till a soul it receives 

From the warm, lazy sun loitering down through green leaves, 

And you'll find a choice nature, not wholly deserving 

A name either English or Yankee — just Irving. 

— James Russell Lowell's Fable for Critics. 



BOOKS RELATING TO IRVING 

The standard biography of Washington Irving is by his 
nephew, Pierre M. Irving (4 vols., 1862). Charles Dudley 
Warner's Washington Irving is the most interesting of the 
short biographies of Irving. The same writer has a choice 
essay on Irving, published by Harper & Brothers. Thackeray, 
who met Irving in America in 1853, has written a loving trib- 
ute to Irving's memory in his Round-about Papers : Nil Nisi 
Bonum, which should be read. One of the most discriminating 



Xxiv OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

and scholarly essays on Irving is in Professor Barrett Wendell's 
Literary History of America. William Dean Howells, in My 
Literai'y Passions, has a charming essay on Irving. 



BOOKS EELATING TO GOLDSMITH 

The editor of this book believes that it is unwise for secondary 
pupils to consult the larger biographies of Goldsmith. Irving's 
Life of Goldsmith does not err to any great extent, and to spend 
time over Forster's Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith and 
Prior's Life of Oliver Goldsmith is profitless. The teacher 
may select passages from those books to read to the class, or to 
add to the fund of anecdotes concerning Goldsmith. Dobson's 
Life of Goldsmith, in the Great Writers series, is a most pains- 
taking and scholarly book. Black's Life of Goldsmith in the 
English Men of Letters series is merely a rehash of Prior and 
Forster without any distinctive note of its own. The one book 
that the pupil should be encouraged to dip into is Boswell's 
Life of Johnson. No attempt should be made to have the 
pupil read the whole book, but with the help of the index much 
interest can be aroused in reading the story of Goldsmith and 
his friends as told by the " Prince of Biographers." Dr. Birk- 
beck Hill's edition of Boswell's Johnson is the most acceptable 
edition of that book. Mr. Augustine Birrell's recently issued 
edition of the Johnson is interesting for its many illustrations. 
If, however, the pupil fails to take delight in Irving's Goldsmith^ 
it is a hopeless and thankless task to drive him into longer and 
drier books about Goldsmith or Goldsmith's contemporaries. 

The teacher should know Thackeray's English Humorists, 
D'Arblay's Diary and Letters, Dobson's Eighteenth Century 
Vignettes, Besant's London in the Eighteenth Century, Hare's 
Walks in London, Hutton's Literary Landmarks of London, 
and Macaulay's various Essays on writers of the period. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



XXV 



GOLDSMITH 

1728. Bom at Pallas. 
1734. Entered school at Elpin. 
1744. Entered Trinity College, Dublin. 
1747. His father died. 
1749. Graduated from Trinity College. 
1752. Went to Edinburgh to study medi- 
cine. 

1755. Travelled in France, Italy, and 

Switzerland. 

1756. Returned to England. 
Usher in Peckham School. 

1757r Contributed to Monthly Revieio. 

1759. The Bee. Wrote the Inquiry. 

1760. Published The Citizen of the World. 
1762. Wrote The Vicar of Wakefield. 

1765. Published The Traveller. Essays. 

1766. Published The Vicar of Wakefield. 

1768. Good-natured Man performed. 

1769. Published The History of Rome. 

1770. Published The Deserted Village. 

1771. Published the History of England, 

4 vols. 

1773. She Stoops to Conquer performed. 

1774. Retaliatio7i wa,s published in April. 
The History of Animated Nature 

was published in June. 
Died in London, April 4. 



CONTEMPORARIES 



Johnson . 
Hume . . 
Sterne . . 
Gray . . 
Garrick . 
H. Walpole 
Smollett . 
Sheridan . 
Adam Smith 
Reynolds . 
Wilkes. . 
Goldsmitli 
Percy . . 
Burke . . 
Churchill . 
Cumberland 
Beattie 
Gibbon 
Boswell . 
Goethe 
C.J. Fox. 
R. B. Sheridan 
Frances Burney 
Mrs. Siddons . 



1709-1784. 
1711-1776. 
1713-1768. 
1716-1771. 
1716-1779. 
1717-1797. 
1721-1771. 
1721-1788. 
1723-1790. 
1723-1792. 
1727-1797. 
1728-1774. 
1728-1811. 
1729-1797. 
1731-1764. 
1732-1811. 
1735-1803. 
1737-1794. 
1740-1795. 
1749-1832. 
1749-1806. 
1751-1816. 
1752-1840. 
1755-1831. 



CONTEMPORARY LITERARY HISTORY 



1728. 

1730. 
1731. 
1732. 
1738. 
1740. 
1744. 
1744. 
1749. 



1751. 
1755. 

1756. 
1759. 
1762. 
1769. 



Pope's Dunciad. 

Gay's Beggar's Opera. 

Thomson's Seasons. 

Gentleman's Magazine founded. 

Pope's Essay on Man. 

Johnson's London. 

Richardson's Pamela. 

Young's Night Tho^ights. 

Johnson's Life of Savage. 

Fielding's Tom Jones. 

Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes. 

Johnson's Irene. 

Gray's Elegy. 

Johnson's Dictionary. 

Burke's Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful. 

Johnson's Rasselas. 

Macpherson's Ossian's Poems. 

Robertson's Charles V. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

A BIOGBAPHT 

BY 
WASHINGTON IRVING 



PEEFACE 

Iifcthe course of a revised edition of my works I have come 
to a biographical sketch of Goldsmith, published several years 
since. It was written hastily, as introductory to a selection 
from his writings ; and, though the facts contained in it were 
collected from various sources, I was chiefly indebted for them 
to the voluminous work of Mr. James Prior, who had collected 
and collated the most minute particulars of the poet's history 
with unwearied research and scrupulous fidelity ; but had 
rendered them, as I thought, in a form too cumbrous and 
overlaid with details and disquisitions, and matters uninter- 
esting to the general reader. 

When I was about of late to revise my biographical sketch, 
preparatory to republication, a volume was put into my hands, 
recently given to the public by Mr. John Forster, of the Inner 
Temple, who, likewise availing himself of the labors of the 
indefatigable Prior, and of a few new lights since evolved, has 
produced a biography of the poet, executed with a spirit, a 
feeling, a grace and an eloquence that leave nothing to be 
desired. Indeed it would have been presumption in me to 
undertake the subject after it had been thus felicitously treated, 
did I not stand committed by my previous sketch. That 
sketch now appeared too meager and insufficient to satisfy 
public demand; yet it had to take its place in the revised 
series of my works unless something more satisfactory could 
be substituted. Under these circumstances I have again taken 

xxix 



2 • OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

telligent being that he appears in his writings. Scarcely an 
adventure or character is given in his works that may not be 
traced to his own parti-colored story. Many of his most ludi- 
crous scenes and ridiculous incidents have been drawn from his 
own blunders and mischances, and he seems really to have been 
buffeted into almost every maxim imparted by him for the 
instruction of his reader. 

Oliver Goldsmith was born on the 10th of November, 1728, 
at the hamlet of Pallas, or Pallasmore, county of Longford, in 
Ireland. He sprang from a respectable, but by no means a 
thrifty stock. Some families seem to inherit kindliness and 
incompetency, and to hand down virtue and poverty from gen- 
eration to generation. Such was the case with the Goldsmiths. 
"They were always," according to their own accounts, "a strange 
family ; they rarely acted like other people ; their hearts were 
in the right place, but their heads seemed to be doing any thing 
but what they ought." — " They were remarkable," says another 
statement, " for their worth, but of no cleverness in the ways 
of the world." Oliver Goldsmith will be found faithfidly to 
inherit the virtues and weaknesses of his race. 

His father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, with hereditary im- 
providence, married when very young and very poor, and starved 
along for several years on a small country curacy and the as- 
sistance of his wife's friends. His whole income, eked out by 
the produce of some fields which he farmed, and of some occa- 
sional duties performed for his wife's uncle, the rector of an ad- 
joining parish, did not exceed forty pounds. 

"And passing rich with forty pounds a year." 

He inhabited an old, half-rustic mansion, that stood on a rising 
ground in a rough, lonely part of the country, overlooking a 
low tract occasionally flooded by the river Inny. In this house 
Goldsmith was born, and it was a birthplace worthy of a poet ; 
for, by all accounts, it was haunted ground. A tradition handed 
down among the neighboring peasantry states that, in after 
years, the house, remaining for some time untenanted, went to 
decay, the roof fell in, and it became so lonely and forlorn as 
to be a resort for the " good people " or fairies, who in Ireland 
are supposed to delight in old, crazy, deserted mansions for 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 6 

their midnight revels. All attempts to repair it were in vain ; 
the fairies battled stoutly to maintain possession. A huge 
misshapen hobgoblin used to bestride the house every evening 
with an immense pair of jack-boots, which, in his efforts at hard 
riding, he would thrust through the roof, kicking to pieces all 
the work of the preceding day. The house was therefore left 
to its fate, and went to ruin. 

Such is the popular tradition about Goldsmith's birthplace. 
About two years after his birth a change came over the circum- 
stances of his father. By the death of his wife's uncle he suc- 
ceeded to the rectory of Kilkenny West ; and, abandoning the 
old goblin mansion, he removed to Lissoy, in the county of 
Westmeath, where he occupied a farm of seventy acres, situated 
on the skirts of that pretty little village. 

This was the scene of Goldsmith's boyhood, the little world 
whence he drew many of those pictures, rural and domestic, 
whimsical and touching, which abound throughout his works, 
and which appeal so eloquently both to the fancy and the 
heart. Lissoy is confidently cited as the original of his "Au- 
burn " in the " Deserted Village " ; his father's establishment, 
a mixture of farm and parsonage, furnished hints, it is said, for 
the rural economy of the Vicar of Wakefield ; and his father 
himself, with his learned simplicity, his guileless wisdom, his 
amiable piety, and utter ignorance of the world, has been ex- 
quisitely portrayed in the worthy Dr. Primrose. Let us pause 
for a moment, and draw from Goldsmith's writings one or two 
of those pictures which, under feigned names, represent his 
father and his family, and the happy fireside of his childish 
days. 

" My father," says the " Man in Black," who, in some re- 
spects, is a counterpart of Goldsmith himself, " my father, the 
younger son of a good family, was possessed of a small living 
in the church. His education was above his fortune, and his 
generosity greater than his education. Poor as he was, he had 
his flatterers poorer tlian himself : for every dinner he gave them, 
they returned him an equivalent in praise ; and this was all he 
wanted. The same ambition that actuates a monarch at the 
head of his army, influenced my father at the head of his table ; 
he told the story of the ivy-tree, and that was laughed at ; he 



4 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

repeated the jest of the two scholars and one pair of breeches, 
and the company laughed at that ; but the story of Taify in 
the sedan-chair was sure to set the table in a roar. Thus his 
pleasure increased in proportion to the pleasure he gave ; he 
loved all the w(5rld, and he fancied all the world loved him. 

"As his fortune was but small, he lived up to the very 
extent of it : he had no intention of leaving his children money, 
for that was dross ; he resolved they should have learning, for 
learning, he used to observe, was better than silver or gold. 
For this purpose he undertook to instruct us himself, and took 
as much care to form our morals as to improve our understand- 
ing. We were told that universal benevolence was what first 
cemented society : we were taught to consider all the wants of 
mankind as our own ; to regard the human face divine with 
affection and esteem ; he wound us up to be mere machines of 
pity, and rendered us incapable of withstanding the slightest 
impulse made either by real or fictitious distress. In a word, 
we were perfectly instructed in the art of giving away thou- 
sands before we were taught the necessary qualifications of 
getting a farthing." ^ 

In the " Deserted Village " we have another picture of his 
father and his father's fireside : 

" His house was known to all the vagrant train, 
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain ; 
The long-reraembered beggar was his guest, 
Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast ; 
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud, 
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd ; 
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 
Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away; 
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, 
Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won. 
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, 
And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; 
Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 
His pity gave ere charity began." 

The family of the worthy pastor consisted of five sons and 
three daughters. Henry, the eldest, was the good man's 

1 Citizen of the World, Letter xxvii. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 5 

pride and hope, and he tasked his slender means to the utmost 
in educating him for a learned and distinguished career. Oliver 
was the second son, and seven years younger than Henry, who 
was the guide and protector of his childhood, and to whom 
he was most tenderly attached throughout life. 

Oliver's education began when he was about three years 
old ; that is to say, he was gathered under the wings of one 
of those good old motherly dames, found in every village, who 
cluck together the whole callow brood of the neighborhood, to 
teacli them their letters and keep them out of harm's way. 
Mistress Elizabeth Delap, for that was her name, flourished 
in this capacity for upward of fifty years, and it was the pride 
and boast of her declining days, when nearly ninety years of 
age, that she was the first that had put a book (doubtless a 
hornbook) into Goldsmith's hands. Apparently he did not 
much profit by it, for she confessed he was one of the dullest 
boys she had ever dealt with, insomuch that she had some- 
times doubted whether it was possible to make any thing of 
him : a common case with imaginative children, who are apt 
to be beguiled from the dry abstractions of elementary study by 
the picturings of the fancy. 

. At six years of age he passed into the hands of the village 
schoolmaster, one Thomas (or, as he was commonly and irrev- 
erently named, Paddy) Byrne, a capital tutor for a poet. He 
had been educated for a pedagogue, ■ but had enlisted in the 
army, served abroad during the wars of Queen Anne's time, 
and risen to the rank of quartermaster of a regiment in Spain. 
At the return of peace, having no longer exercise for the sword, 
he resumed the ferule, and drilled the urchin populace of Lissoy, 
Goldsmith is supposed to have had him and his school in view 
in the following sketch in his " Deserted Village " : 

"Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, 
With blossom 'd furze unprofitably gay, 
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule. 
The village master taught his little school ; 
A man severe he was, and stern to view, 
I knew him well, and every truant knew : 
Well had the boding tremblers learn' d to trace 
The day's disasters in his morning face ; 
Full well they laugh' d with counterfeited glee 



b OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; 

Full- well the busy whisper circling round, 

Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd : 

Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, 

The love he bore to learning was in fault ; 

The village all declared how much he knew, 

'Twas certain he could write and cipher too ; 

Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 

And e'en the story ran that he could gauge ; 

In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill. 

For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still ; 

While words of learned length and thund'ring sound 

Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around — 

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 

That one small head could carry all he knew." 

There are certain whimsical traits in the character of Byrne, 
not given in the foregoing sketch. He was fond of talking of 
his vagabond wanderings in foreign lands, and had brought 
with him from the wars a world of campaigning stories, of 
which he was generally the hero, and w^hich he would deal 
forth to his wondering scholars when he ought to have been 
teaching them their lessons. These travellers' tales had a 
powerful effect upon the vivid imagination of Goldsmith, and 
awakened an unconquerable passion for wandering and seeking 
adventure. 

Byrne was, moreover, of a romantic vein, and exceedingly 
superstitious. He was deeply versed in the fairy superstitions 
which abound in Ireland, all which he professed implicitly to 
believe. Under his tuition Goldsmith soon became almost as 
great a proficient in fairy lore. From this branch of good-for-. 
nothing knowledge, his studies, by an easy transition, extended 
to the histories of robbers, pirates, smugglers, and the whole 
race of Irish rogues and rapparees. Every thing, in short, that 
savored of romance, fable, and adventure, was congenial to his 
poetic mind, and took instant root there ; but the slow plants 
of useful knowledge were apt to be overrun, if not choked, by 
the weeds of his quick imagination. 

Another trait of his motley preceptor, Byrne, was a dis- 
position to dabble in poetry, and this likewise was caught 
by his pupil. Before he was eight years old Goldsmith had 
contracted a habit of scribbling verses on small scraps of 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 7 

paper, which, in a little while, he would throw into the fire. 
A few of these sybilline leaves, however, were rescued from 
the flames and conveyed to his mother. The good woman 
read them with a mother's delight, and saw at once that her 
son was a genius and a poet. From that time she beset 
her husband with solicitations to give the boy an education 
suitable to his talents. The worthy man was already strait- 
ened by the costs of instruction of his eldest son Henry, and 
had intended to bring his second son up to a trade ; but the 
. mother would listen to no such thing ; as usual, her influence 
prevailed, and Oliver, instead of being instructed in some 
humble, but cheerful and gainful handicraft, was devoted to 
poverty and the Muse, 

A severe attack of the smallpox caused him to be taken 
from under the care of his stoiy-telling preceptor, Byrne. His 
malady had nearly proved fatal, and his face remained pitted 
through life. On his recovery he was placed under the charge 
of the Rev. Mr. Griffin, schoolmaster of Elphin, in Roscommon, 
and became an inmate in the house of his uncle, John Gold- 
smith, Esq., of Bally oughter, in that vicinity. He now entered 
upon studies of a higher order, but without making any uncom- 
mon progress. Still a careless, easy facility of disposition, an 
amusing eccentricity of manners, and a vein of quiet and pecu- 
liar humor, rendered him a general favorite, and a trifling inci- 
dent soon induced his uncle's family to concur in his mother's 
opinion of his genius. 

A number of young folks had assembled at his uncle's to 
dance. One of the company, named Cummings, played on the 
violin. In the course of the evening Oliver undertook a horn- 
pipe. His short and clumsy figure, and his face pitted and 
discolored with the smallpox, rendered him a ludicrous figure 
in the eyes of the musician, who made merry at his expense, 
dubbing him his little J^sop. Goldsmith w^as nettled by the 
jest, and, stopping short in the hornpipe, exclaimed, 

" Our herald hath proclaimed this saying, 
See iEsop dancing, and his monkey playing." 

The repartee was thought wonderful for a boy of nine years 
old, and Oliver became forthwith the wit and the bright genius 



8 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

of the family. It was thought a pity he should not receive the 
same advantages with his elder brother Henry, who had been 
sent to the University ; and, as his father's circumstances would 
not afford it, several of his relatives, spurred on by the repre- 
sentations of his mother, agreed to contribute towards the ex- 
pense. The greater part, however, was borne by his uncle, the 
Rev. Thomas Contarine. This worthy man had been the col- 
lege companion of Bishop Berkeley, and was possessed of mod- 
erate means, holding the living of Carrick-on-Shannon. He 
had married the sister of G-oldsmith's father, but was now 
a widower, with an only child, a daughter, named Jane. Con- 
tarine was a kind-hearted man, with a generosity beyond his 
means. He took Goldsmith into favor from his infancy ; his 
house was open to him during the holidays ; his daughter 
Jane, two years older than the poet, was his early playmate : 
and Uncle Contarine continued to the last one of his most 
active, unwavering, and generous friends. 

Fitted out in a great measure by this considerate relative, 
Oliver was now transferred to schools of a higher order, to 
prepare him for the University ; first to one at Athlone, kept 
by the Rev. Mr. Campbell, and, at the end of two years, to 
one at Edgeworthstown, under the superintendence of the Rev. 
Patrick Hughes. 

Even at these schools his proficiency does not appear to 
have been brilliant. He was indolent and careless, however, 
rather than dull, and, on the whole, appears to have been well 
thought of by his teachers. In his studies he inclined towards 
the Latin poets and historians ; relished Ovid and Horace, and 
delighted in Livy. He exercised himself with pleasure in read- 
ing and translating Tacitus, and was brought to pay attention 
to style in his compositions by a reproof from his brother 
Henry, to whom he had written brief and confused letters, and 
who told him in reply, that if he had but little to say, to 
endeavor to say that little well. 

The career of his brother Henry at the University was 
enough to stimulate him to exertion. He seemed to be realiz- 
ing all his father's hopes, and was winning collegiate honors that 
the good man considered indicative of his future success in life. 

In the meanwhile, Oliver, if not distinguished among his 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 9 

teachers, was popular among his schoolmates. He had a 
thoughtless generosity extremely captivating to young hearts : 
his temper was quick and sensitive, and easily offended ; but 
his anger was momentary, and it was impossible for him to 
harbor resentment. He was the leader of all boyish sports and 
athletic amusements, especially ball-playing, and he was fore- 
most in all mischievous pranks. Many years afterward, an old 
man, Jack Fitzsimmons, one of the directors of the sports and 
keeper of the ball-court at Ballymahon, used to boast of having 
been schoolmate of " Noll Goldsmith," as he called him, and 
would dwell with vainglory on one of their exploits, in rob- 
bing the orchard of Tirlicken, an old family residence of Lord 
Annaly. The exploit, however, had nearly involved disastrous 
consequences ; for the crew of juvenile depredators were cap- 
tured, like Shakspeare and his deer-stealing colleagues ; and 
nothing but the respectability of Goldsmith's connections saved 
him from the punishment that would have awaited more 
plebeian delinquents. 

An amusing incident is related as occurring in Goldsmith's 
last journey homeward from Edgeworthstown. His father's 
house was about twenty miles distant ; the road lay through a 
rough country, impassable for carriages. Goldsmith procured 
a horse for the journey, and a friend furnished him with a 
guinea for travelling expenses. He was but a stripling of six- 
teen, and being thus suddenly mounted on horseback, with 
money in his pocket, it is no wonder that his head was turned. 
He determined to play the man, and to spend his money in 
independent traveller's style. Accordingly, instead of pushing 
directly for home, he halted for the night at the little town of 
Ardagh, and, .accosting the first person he met, inquired, with 
somewhat of a consequential air, for the best house in the 
place. Unluckily, the person he had accosted was one Kelly, 
a notorious wag, who was quartered in the family of one Mr. 
Featherstone, a gentleman of fortune. Amused with the self- 
consequence of the stripling, and willing to play off a practical 
joke at his expense, he directed him to what was literally "the 
best house in the place," namely, the family mansion of Mr. 
Featherstone. Goldsmith accordingly rode up to what he sup- 
posed to be an inn, ordered his horse to be taken to the stable, 



10 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

walked into the parlor, seated himself by the fire, and demanded 
what he could have for supper. On ordinary occasions he was 
diffident and even awkward in his manners, but here he was 
" at ease in his inn," and felt called upon to show his manhood 
and enact the experienced traveller. His person was by no 
means calculated to play off his pretensions, for he was short 
and thick, with a pock-marked face, and an air and carriage by 
no means of a distinguished cast. The owner of the house, 
however, soon discovered his whimsical mistake, and, being a 
man of humor, determined to indulge it, especially as he acci- 
dentally learned that this intruding guest was the son of an old 
acquaintance. 

Accordingly, Goldsmith was " fooled to the top of his bent," 
and permitted to have full sway throughout the evening. Never 
was schoolboy more elated. When supper was served, he most 
condescendingly insisted that the landlord, his wife and daughter 
should partake, and ordered a bottle of wine to crown the re- 
past and benefit the house. His last flourish was on going to 
bed, when he gave especial orders to have a hot cake at break- 
fast. His confusion and dismay, on discovering the next morn- 
ing that he had been swaggering in this free and easy way in 
the house of a private gentleman, may be readily conceived. 
True to his habit of turning the events of his life to literary 
account, we find this chapter of ludicrous blunders and cross 
purposes dramatized many years afterward in his admirable 
comedy of "She Stoops to Conquer, or the Mistakes of a 
Night." 

CHAPTER II 

Improvident marriages in the Goldsmitli family — Goldsmith at the 
miiversity — Situation of a sizer — Tyranny of Wilder, the tutor — 
Pecuniary straits — Street ballads — College riot — Gallows Walsh 
— College prize — A dance interrupted 

While Oliver was making his way somewhat negligently 
through the schools, his elder brother Henry was rejoicing his 
father's heart by his career at the University. He soon dis- 
tinguished himself at the examinations, and obtained a scholar- 
ship in J|74:3. This is a collegiate distinction which serves as 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 11 

a stepping-stone in any of the learned professions, and which 
leads to advancement in the University should the individual 
choose to remain there. His father now trusted that he would 
push forward for that comfortable provision, a fellowship, and 
thence to higher dignities and emoluments. Henry, however, 
had the improvidence or the " unworldliness " of his race : re- 
turning to the country during the succeeding vacation, he 
married for love, relinquished, of course, all his collegiate pros- 
pects and advantages, set up a school in his father's neighbor- 
hoocl, and buried his talents and acquirements for the remainder 
of his life in a curacy of forty pounds a year. 

Another matrimonial event occurred not long afterward in 
the Goldsmith family, to disturb the equanimity of its worthy 
head. This was the clandestine marriage of his daughter 
Catherine with a young gentleman of the name of Hodson, who 
had been confided to the care of her brother Henry to complete 
his studies. As the youth was of wealthy parentage, it was 
thought a lucky match for the Goldsmith family ; but the 
tidings of the event stung the bride's father to the soul. Proud 
of his integrity, and jealous of that good name which was his 
chief possession, he saw himself and his family subjected to 
the degrading suspicion of having abused a trust reposed in 
them to promote a mercenary match. In the first transports 
of his feelings, he is said to have uttered a wish that his 
daughter might never have a child to bring like shame and 
sorrow on her head. The hasty wish, so contrary to the usual 
benignity of the man, was recalled and repented of almost as 
soon as uttered ; but it was considered baleful in its effects by 
the superstitious neighborhood ; for, though his daughter bore 
three children, they all died before her. 

A more effectual measure was taken by Mr. Goldsmith to 
ward off the apprehended imputation, but one which im^posed 
a heavy burden on his family. This was to furnish a marriage 
portion of four hundred pounds, that his daughter might not be 
said to have entered her husband's family empty-handed. To 
raise the sum in cash was impossible ; but he assigned to Mr. 
Hodson his little farm and the income of his tithes until the 
marriage portion should be paid. In the meantime, as his 
living did not amount to <£200 per annum, he had to practise 



12 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

the strictest economy to pay oif gradually this heavy tax in- 
curred by his nice sense of honor. 

The first of his family to feel the effects of this economy was 
Oliver. The time had now arrived for him to be sent to the 
University; and, accordingly, on the 11th June, 1747, when 
sixteen years of age, he entered Trinity College, Dublin ; but 
his father was no longer able to place him there as a pensioner, 
as he had done his eldest son Henry; he was obliged, there- 
fore, to enter him as a sizer, or " poor scholar." He was lodged 
in one of the top rooms adjoining the library of the building, 
numbered 35, where it is said his name may still be seen, 
scratched by himself upon a window frame. 

A student of this class is taught and boarded gratuitously, 
and has to pay but a very small sum for his room. It is ex- 
pected, in return for these advantages, that he will be a dili- 
gent student, and render himself useful in a variety of ways. 
In Trinity College, at the time of Goldsmith's admission, sev- 
eral derogatory, and, indeed, menial offices were exacted from 
the sizer, as if the college sought to indemnify itself for con- 
ferring benefits by inflicting indignities. He was obliged to 
sweep part of the courts in the morning ; to carry up the 
dishes from the kitchen to the fellows' table, and to wait in 
the hall until that body had dined. His very dress marked 
the inferiority of the " poor student " to his happier classmates. 
It was a black gown of coarse stuff without sleeves, and a plain 
black cloth cap without a tassel. We can conceive nothing 
more odious and ill-judged than these distinctions, which at- 
tached the idea of degradation to poverty, and placed the in- 
digent youth of merit below the worthless minion of fortune. 
They were calculated to wound and irritate the noble mind, 
and to render the base mind baser. 

Indeed, the galling effect of these servile tasks upon youths 
of proud spirits and quick sensibilities became at length too 
notorious to be disregarded. About fifty years since, on a Trin- 
ity Sunday, a number of persons were assembled to witness the 
college ceremonies ; and as a sizer was carrying up a dish of 
meat to the fellows' table, a burly citizen in the crowd made 
some sneering observation on the servility of his office. Stung 
to the quick, the high-spirited youth instantly flung the dish 



OLIVEE GOLDSMITH 13 

and its contents at the bead of the sneerer. The sizer was 
sharply reprimanded for this outbreak of wounded pride, but 
the degrading task was from that day forward very properly 
consigned to menial hands. 

It was with the utmost repugnance that Goldsmith entered 
college in this capacity. His shy and sensitive nature was af- 
fected by the inferior station he was doomed to hold among his 
gay and opulent fellow-students, and he became, at times, moody 
and despondent. A recollection of these early mortifications 
indliced him, in after years, most strongly to dissuade his brother 
Henry, the clergyman, from sending a son to college on a like 
footing. "If he has ambition, strong passions, and an exqui- 
site sensibility of contempt, do not send him there, unless you 
have no other trade for him except your own." 

To add to his annoyances, the fellow of the college who had 
the peculiar control of his studies, the Eev. Theaker Wilder, was 
a man of violent and capricious temper, and of diametrically 
opposite tastes. The tutor was devoted to the exact sciences ; 
Goldsmith was for the classics. Wilder endeavored to force his 
favorite studies upon the student by harsh means, suggested by 
his own coarse and savage nature. He abused him in presence 
of the class as ignorant and stupid ; ridiculed him as awkward 
and ugly, and at times in the transports of his temper indulged 
in personal violence. The effect M'as to aggravate a passive 
distaste into a positive aversion. Goldsmith was loud in ex- 
pressing his contempt for mathematics and his dislike of ethics 
and logic ; and the prejudices thus imbibed continued through 
life. Mathematics he always pronounced a science to which 
the meanest intellects were competent. 

A truer cause of this distaste for the severer studies may prob- 
ably be found in his natural indolence and his love of convivial 
pleasures. " I was a lover of mirth, good-humor, and even some- 
times of fun," said he, "from my childhood." He sang a good 
song, was a boon companion, and could not resist any temptation 
to social enjoyment. He endeavored to persuade himself that 
learning and dulness went hand in hand, and that genius w^as 
not to be put in harness. Even in riper years, when the conscious- 
ness of his own deficiencies ought to have convinced him of the 
importance of early study, he speaks slightingly of college honors. 



14 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

" A lad," says he, " whose passions are not strong enough in 
youth to mislead him from that path of science which his tutors, 
and not his inclination, have chalked out, by four or five years' 
perseverance will probably obtain every advantage and honor 
his college can bestow. I would compare the man whose youth 
has been thus passed in the tranquillity of dispassionate pru- 
dence, to liquors that never ferment, and, consequently, continue 
always muddy." ^ 

The death of his worthy father, which took place early in 
1747, rendered Goldsmith's situation at college extremely irk- 
some. His mother was left with little more than the means of 
providing for the wants of her household, and was unable to 
furnish him any remittances. He would have been compelled, 
therefore, to leave college, had it not been for the occasional 
contributions of friends, the foremost among whom was his 
generous and warm-hearted uncle Contarine. Still these sup- 
plies were so scanty and precarious, that in the intervals be- 
tween them he was put to great straits. He had two college 
associates from whom he would occasionally borrow small sums ; 
one was an early schoolmate, by the name of Beatty j the other 
a cousin, and the chosen companion of his frolics, Robert (or 
rather Bob) Bryanton, of Ballymulvey House, near Ballymahon. 
When these casual supplies failed him he was more than once 
obliged to raise funds for his immediate wants by pawning his 
books. At times he sank into despondency, but he had what 
he termed "a knack at hoping," which soon buoyed him up 
again. He began now to resort to his poetical vein as a source 
of profit, scribbling street-ballads, which he privately sold for 
five shillings each at a shop which dealt in such small wares of 
literature. He felt an author's affection for these unowned 
bantlings, and we are told would stroll privately through the 
streets at night to hear them sung, listening to the comments 
and criticisms of bystanders, and observing the degree of ap- 
plause which each received. 

Edmund Burke was a fellow-student with Goldsmith at the 
college, Keither the statesman nor the poet gave promise of 
their future celebrity, though Burke certainly surpassed his con- 

^ Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning in Europe^ Chap. ix. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 15 

temporary in industry and application, and evinced more disposi- 
tion for self-improvement, associating himself with a number of 
his fellow-students in a debating club, in which they discussed 
literary topics, and exercised themselves in composition. 

Goldsmith may likewise have belonged to this association, but 
his propensity was rather to mingle with the gay and thought- 
less. On one occasion we find him implicated in an affair that 
came nigh producing his expulsion. A report was brought to 
college that a scholar was in the hands of the bailiffs. This 
wa^an insult in which every gownsman felt himself involved. 
A number of the scholars flew to arms, and sallied forth to 
battle, headed by a hair-brained fellow nicknamed " Gallows " 
Walsh, noted for his aptness at mischief and fondness for riot. 
The stronghold of the bailiff was carried by storm, the scholar 
set at liberty, and the delinquent catchpole borne off captive to 
the college, where, having no pump to put him under, they 
satisfied the demands of collegiate law by ducking him in an 
old cistern. 

Flushed with this signal victory, Gallows Walsh now ha- 
rangued his followers, and proposed to break open Newgate, or 
the Black Dog, as the prison was called, and effect a general 
jail delivery. He was answered by shouts of concurrence, and 
away went the throng of madcap youngsters, fully bent upon 
putting an end to the tyranny of law. They were joined by 
the mob of the city, and made an attack upon the prison with 
true Irish precipitation and thoughtlessness, never having pro- 
vided themselves with cannon to batter its stone walls. A few 
shots from the prison brought them to their senses, and they 
beat a hasty retreat, two of the townsmen being killed, and 
several wounded. 

A severe scrutiny of this affair took place at the University. 
Four students, who had been ringleaders, were expelled ; four 
others, who had been prominent in the affray, were publicly 
admonished ; among the latter was the unlucky Goldsmith. 

To make up for this disgrace, he gained, within a month 
afterward, one of the minor prizes of the college. It is true it 
was one of the very smallest, amounting in pecuniary value to 
but thirty shillings, but it was the first distinction he had 
gained in his whole collegiate career. This turn of success 



16 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

and sudden influx of wealth proved too much for the head of 
our poor student. He forthwith gave a supper and dance at 
his chamber to a number of young persons of both sexes from 
the city, in direct violation of college rules. The unwonted 
sound of the fiddle reached the ears of the implacable Wilder. 
He rushed to the scene of unhallowed festivity, inflicted cor- 
poral puinshment on the " father of the feast," and turned his 
astonished guests neck and heels out of doors. 

This filled the measure of poor Goldsmith's humiliations ; 
he felt degraded both within college and without. He dreaded 
the ridicule of his fellow-students for the ludicrous termination 
of his orgie, and he was ashamed to meet his city acquaintances 
after the degrading chastisement received in their presence, 
and after their own ignominious expulsion. Above all, he felt 
it impossible to submit any longer to the insulting tyranny of 
Wilder : he determined, therefore, to leave, not merely the 
college, but also his native land, and to bury what he conceived 
to be his irretrievable disgrace in some distant country. He ac- 
cordingly sold his books and clothes, and sallied forth from the 
college walls the very next day, intending to embark at Cork 
for — he scarce knew where — America, or any other part be- 
yond sea. With his usual heedless imprudence, however, he 
loitered about Dublin until his finances were reduced to a 
shilling ; with this amount of specie he set out on his journey. 

For three whole days he subsisted on his shilling ; when 
that was spent, he parted with some of the clothes from his 
back, until, reduced almost to nakedness, he was four-and- 
twenty hours without food, insomuch that he declared a hand- 
ful of gray pease, given to him by a girl at a wake, was one of 
the most delicious repasts he had ever tasted. Hunger, fatigue, 
and destitution brought down his spirit and calmed his anger. 
Fain would he have retraced his steps, could he have done so 
with any salvo for the lingerings of his pride. In his extremity 
he conveyed to his brother Henry information of his distress, 
and of the rash project on which he had set out. His affec- 
tionate brother hastened to his relief; furnished him with 
money and clothes ; soothed his feelings with gentle counsel ; 
prevailed upon him to return to college ; and effected an indif- 
ferent reconciliation between him and Wilder. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 17 

After this irregular sally upon life he remained nearly two 
years longer at the University, giving proofs of talent in occa- 
sional translations from the classics, for one of which he re- 
ceived a premium, awarded only to those who are the first in 
literary merit. Still he never made much figure at college, his 
natural disinclination to study being increased by the harsh 
treatment he continued to experience from his tutor. 

Among the anecdotes told of him while at college is one in- 
dicative of that prompt, but thoughtless and often whimsical 
benevolence which throughout life formed one of the most ec- 
centric, yet endearing points of his character. He was engaged 
to breakfast one day with a college intimate, but failed to make 
his appearance. His friend repaired to his room, knocked at 
the door, and was bidden to enter. To his surprise, he found 
Goldsmith in his bed, immersed to his chin in feathers. A 
serio-comic story explained the circumstance. In the course 
of the preceding evening's stroll he had met with a woman with 
five children, who implored his charity. Her husband was in 
the hospital ; she was just from the country, a stranger, and 
destitute, without food or shelter for her helpless offspring. 
This was too much for the kind heart of Goldsmith. He was 
almost as poor as herself, it is true, and had no money in his 
pocket ; but he brought her to the college gate, gave her the 
blankets from his bed to cover her little brood, and part of his 
clothes for her to sell and purchase food ; and, finding himself 
cold during the night, had cut open his bed and buried himself 
among the feathers. 

At length, on the 27th of February, 1749, 0. S., he was 
admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and took his final 
leave of the University. He was freed from college rule, that 
emancipation so ardently coveted by the thoughtless student, 
and which too generally launches him amid the cares, the hard- 
ships, and vicissitudes of life. He was freed, too, from the 
brutal tyranny of Wilder. If his kind and placable nature 
could retain any resentment for past injuries, it might have 
been gratified by learning subsequently that the passionate 
career of Wilder was terminated by a violent death in the 
course of a dissolute brawl ; but Goldsmith took no delight in 
the misfortunes even of his enemies. 



18 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

He now returned to his friends, no longer the student to sport 
away the happy interval of vacation, but the anxious man, who 
is henceforth to shift for himself and make his way through the 
world. In fact, he had no legitimate home to return to. At 
the death of his father, the paternal house at Lissoy, in which 
Goldsmith had passed his childhood, had been taken by Mr. 
Hodson, who had married his sister Catherine. His mother 
had removed to Ballymahon, where she occupied a small house, 
and had to practise the severest frugality. His elder brother 
Henry served the curacy and taught the school of his late father's 
parish, and lived in narrow circumstances at Goldsmith's birth- 
place, the old goblin-house at Pallas. 

None of his relatives were in circumstances to aid him with 
any thing more than a temporary home, and the aspect of every 
one seemed somewhat changed. In fact, his career at college 
had disappointed his friends, and they began to doubt his be- 
ing the great genius they had fancied him. He whimsically 
alludes to this circumstance in that piece of autobiography, 
" The Man in Black," in the " Citizen of the WorlcLt 
'""" The first opportunity my father had of finding his ex- 
pectations disappointed was in the middling figure I made 
at the University : he had flattered himself that he should 
soon see me rising into the foremost rank in literary repu- 
tation, but was mortified to find me utterly unnoticed and 
unknown. His disappointment might have been partly ascribed 
to his having overrated my talents, and partly to my dislike 
of mathematical reasonings at a time when my imagination 
and memory, yet unsatisfied, were more eager after new objects 
than desirous of reasoning upon those I knew. This, however, 
did not please my tutors, who observed, indeed, that I was a 
little dull, but at the same time allowed that I seemed to be 
very good-natured, and had no harm in me." ^ 

The only one of his relatives who did not appear to lose 
faith in him was his uncle Contarine. This kind and con- 
siderate man, it is said, saw in him a warmth of heart requir- 
ing some skill to direct, and a latent genius that wanted time 
to mature, and these impressions none of his subsequent follies 
and irregularities wholly obliterated. His purse and affection, 

1 Citizen of the Woiid, Letter xxvii. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 19 

therefore, as well as his house, were now open to him, and he 
became his chief counsellor and director after his father's death. 
He urged him to prepare for holy orders ; and others of his 
relatives concurred in the advice. Goldsmith had a settled 
repugnance to a clerical life. This has been ascribed by some 
to conscientious scruples, not considering himself of a temper 
and frame of mind for such a sacred office : others attributed it 
to his roving propensities, and his desire to visit foreign coun- 
tries ; he himself gives a whimsical objection in his biography 
of*the "Man in Black ":^ — "To be obliged to wear a long 
wig when 1 liked a short one, or a black coat when I generally 
dressed in brown, I thought such a restraint upon my liberty 
that I absolutely rejected the proposal."-^ 

In effect, however, his scruples were overruled, and he 
agreed to qualify himself for the office. He was now only 
twenty-one, and must pass two years of probation. They 
were two years of rather loitering unsettled life. Some- 
times he was at Lissoy, participating with thoughtless enjoy- 
ment in the rural sports and occupations of his brother-in-law, 
Mr. Hodson; sometimes he was with his brother Henry, at 
the old goblin mansion at Pallas, assisting him occasionally 
in his school. The early marriage and unambitious retirement 
of Henry, though so subversive of the fond plans of his father, 
had proved happy in their results. He was already surrounded 
by a blooming family ; he was contented with his lot, beloved 
by his parishioners, and lived in the daily practice of all the 
amiable virtues, and the immediate enjoyment of their reward. 
Of the tender affection inspired in the breast of Goldsmith by 
the constant kindness of this excellent brother, and of the 
longing recollection with which, in the lonely wanderings of 
after years, he looked back upon this scene of domestic felicity, 
we have a touching instance in the well-known opening to his 
poem of " The Traveller " : 

"Remote, unfriended, melancholy slow. 
Or by the lazy Scheld or wandering Po ; 

****** 

Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see. 
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee ; 

1 Citizen of the World, Letter xxvii. 



20 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, 
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. 

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend, 

And round his dwelling guardian saints attend ; 

Bless' d be that spot, where cheerful guests retire 

To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire ; 

Bless'd that abode, where want and pain repair, 

And every stranger finds a ready chair : 

Bless'd be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd, 

Where all the ruddy family around 

Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, 

Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale ; 

Or press the bashful stranger to his food, 

And learn the luxury of doing good," 

During this loitering life Goldsmith pursued no study, but 
rather amused himself with miscellaneous reading ; such as 
biography, travels, poetry, novels, plays — every thing, in short, 
that administered to the imagination. Sometimes he strolled 
along the banks of the river Inny ; where, in after years, when 
he had become famous, his favorite seats and haunts used to 
be pointed out. Often he joined in the rustic sports of the 
villagers, and became adroif at throwing the sledge, afavorite 
feat of activity and strength in Ireland. Recollections of these 
" healthful sports " we find in his " Deserted Village " : 

" How often have I bless'd the coming day, 
When toil remitting lent its turn to play, 
And all the village train, from labor free. 
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree : 
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground, 
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round." 

A boon companion in all his rural amusements, was his 
cousin and college crony, Robert Bryanton, with whom he 
sojourned occasionally at Ballymulvey House in the neigh- 
borhood. They used to make excursions about the country 
on foot, sometimes fishing, sometimes hunting otter in the 
Inny. They got up a country club at the little inn of Bally- 
mahon, of which Goldsmith soon became the oracle and prime 
wit ; astonishing his unlettered associates by his learning, and 
being considered capital at a song and a story. From the 
rustic conviviality of the inn at Ballymahon, and the company 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 21 

which used to assemble there, it is surmised that he took some 
hints in after life for his picturing of Tony Lumpkin and his 
associates: "Dick Muggins, the exciseinarri; Jack Slang, the 
horse doctor ; little Aminidab, that grinds the music box, and 
Tom Twist, that spins the pewter platter." Nay, it is thought 
that Tony's drinking song at the " Three Jolly Pigeons," was 
but a revival of one of the convivial catches at Ballymahou : 

" Then come put the jorum about, 
And let us be merry and clever. 
Our hearts and our liquors are stout. 

Here's the Three Jolly Pigeons for ever. 
Let some cry of woodcock or hare, 

Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeons, 
; But of all the gay birds in the air. 

Here's a health to the Three Jolly Pigeons. 
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll." 

Notwithstanding all these accomplishments and this rural 
popularity, his friends began to shake their heads and shrug 
their shoulders when they spoke of him ; and his brother Henry 
noted with any thing but satisfaction his frequent visits to the 
club at Ballymahou. He emerged, however, unscathed from 
this dangerous ordeal, more fortunate in this respect than his 
comrade Bryanton ; but he retained throughout life a fondness 
for clubs : often, too, in the course of his checkered career, he 
looked back to this period of rural sports and careless enjoy- 
ments, as one of the few sunny spots of his cloudy life ; and 
though he ultimately rose to associate with birds of a finer 
feather, his heart would still yearn in secret after the " Theee 
Jolly Pigeons." 



CHAPTER III 

Goldsmith rejected by the Bishop — Second sally to see the world — 
Takes passage for America — Ship sails without him — Return on 
Fiddle-back — A hospitable friend — The Counsellor 

The time was now arrived for Goldsmith to apply for orders, 
and he presented himself accordingly before the Bishop of Elfin 
for ordination. We have stated his great objection to clerical 



22 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

life, the obligation to wear a black coat ; and, whimsical as it 
may appear, dress seems in fact to have formed an obstacle to 
his entrance into the church. He had ever a passion for 
clothing his sturdy, but awkward little person in gay colors ; 
and on this solemn occasion, when it was to be supposed his 
garb would be of suitable gravity, he appeared luminously 
arrayed in scarlet breeches ! He was rejected by the Bishop : 
some say for want of sufficient studious preparation ; his ram- 
bles and frolics with Bob Bryanton, and his revels with the 
club at Ballymahon, having been much in the way of his theo- 
logical studies ; others attribute his rejection to reports of his 
college irregularities, which the Bishop had received from his 
old tyrant Wilder ; but those who look into the matter with 
more knowing eyes, pronounce the scarlet breeches to have been 
the fundamental objection. " My friends," says Goldsmith, 
speaking through his humorous representative, the " Man in 
Black " — " my friends were now perfectly satisfied I was un- 
done ; and yet they thought it a pity for one that had not the 
least harm in him, and was so very good-natured."^ His uncle 
Contarine, however, still remained unwavering in his kindness, 
though much less sanguine in his expectations. He now looked 
round for a humbler sphere of action, and through his influence 
and exertions Oliver was received as tutor in the family of a 
Mr. Flinn, a gentleman of the neighborhood. The situation 
was apparently respectable ; he had his seat at the table ; and 
joined the family in their domestic recreations and their evening 
game at cards. There was a servility, however, in his position, 
which was not to his taste : nor did his deference for the family 
increase upon familiar intercourse. He charged a member, of 
it with unfair play at cards. A violent altercation ensued, 
which ended in his throwing up his situation as tutor. On 
being paid oft' he found himself in possession of an unheard of 
amount of money. His wandering propensity and his desire to 
see ,the world were instantly in the ascendency. Without 
communicating his plans or intentions to his friends, he pro- 
cured a good horse, and with thirty pounds in his pocket, made 
his second sally forth into the world. 

1 Citizen of the World, Letter xxvii. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 23 

The worthy niece and housekeeper of the hero of La Mancha 
could not have been more surprised and dismayed at one of the 
Don's clandestine expeditions, than were the mother and friends 
of Goldsmith when they heard of his mysterious departure. 
Weeks elapsed, and nothing was seen or heard of him. It was 
feared that he had left the country on one of his wandering 
freaks, and his poor mother was reduced almost to despair, 
when one day he arrived at her door almost as forlorn in plight 
as the prodigal son. Of his "thirty pounds not a shilling was 
left"; and, instead of the goodly steed on which he had issued 
forth on his errantry, he was mounted on a sorry little pony, 
which he had nicknamed Fiddle-back. As soon as his mother 
was well assured of his safety, she rated him soundly for his 
inconsiderate conduct. His brothers and sisters, who were 
tenderly attached to him, interfered, and succeeded in molhfy- 
ing her ire ; and whatever lurking anger the good dame might 
have was no doubt effectually vanquished by the following 
whimsical narrative which he drew up at his brother's house 
and dispatched to her : 

" My dear mother, if you will sit down and calmly listen to 
what I say, you shall be fully resolved in every one of those 
many questions you have asked me. I went to Cork and con- 
verted my horse, which you prize so much higher than Fiddle- 
back, into cash, took my passage in a ship bound for America, 
and, at the same time, paid the captain for my freight and all 
otlier expenses of my voyage. But it so happened that the 
wind did not answer for three weeks; and you know, mother, 
that I could not command the elements. My misfortune was, 
that, when the wind served, I happened to be with a party in 
the country, and my friend the captain never inquired after me, 
but set sail with as much indifference as if I had been on board. 
The remainder of my time I employed in the city and its envi- 
rons, viewing every thing curious, and you know no one can 
starve while he has money in his pocket. 

" Reduced, however, to my last two guineas, I began to think 
of my dear mother and friends whom I had left behind me, 
and so bought that generous beast Fiddle-back, and bade adieu 
to Cork with only five shillings in my pocket. This, to be 
sure, was but a scanty allowance for man and horse towards a 



24 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

journey of above a hundred miles ; but I did not despair, for I 
knew I must find friends on the road. 

" I recollected particularly an old and faithful acquaintance 
I made at college, who had often and earnestly pressed me to 
spend a summer with him, and he lived but eight miles from 
Cork. This circumstance of vicinity he would expatiate on to 
me with peculiar emphasis. 'We shall,^ says he, 'enjoy the 
delights of both city and country, and you shall command my 
stable and my purse.' 

" However, upon the way I met a poor woman all in tears, 
who told me her husband had been arrested for a debt he was 
not able to pay, and that his eight children must now starve, 
bereaved as they were of his industry, which had been their 
only support. I thought myself at home, being not far from 
my good friend's house, and therefore parted with a moiety of 
all my store ; and pray, mother, ought I not have given her the 
other half crown, for what she got would be of little use to 
her 1 However, I soon arrived at the mansion of my affectionate 
friend, guarded by the vigilance of a huge mastiff, who flew at 
me and would have torn me to pieces but for the assistance of 
a woman, whose countenance was not less grim than that of the 
dog; yet she with great humanity relieved me from the jaws 
of this Cerberus, and was prevailed on to carry up my name to 
her master. 

" Without suffering me to wait long, my old friend, who was 
then recovering from a severe fit of sickness, came down in his 
nightcap, nightgown, and slippers, and embraced me with the 
most cordial welcome, showed me in, and, after giving me a 
history of his indisposition, assured me that he considered him- 
self peculiarly fortunate in having under his roof the man he 
most loved on earth, and whose stay with him must, above 
all things, contribute to perfect his recovery. I now repented 
sorely I had not given the poor woman the other half crown, 
as I thought all my bills of humanity would be punctually 
answered by this worthy man. I revealed to him my whole 
soul ; I opened to him all my distresses ; and freely owned 
that I had but one half crown in my pocket ; but that now, 
like a ship after weathering out the storm, I. considered myself 
secure in a safe and hospitable harbor. He made no answer, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 25 

but walked about the room, rubbing his hands as one in deep 
study. This I imputed to the sympathetic feelings of a tender 
heart, which increased my esteem for him, and, as that in- 
creased, I gave the most favorable interpretation to his silence. 
I construed it into delicacy of sentiment, as if he dreaded tc 
wound my pride by expressing his commiseration in words, 
leaving his generous conduct to speak for itself. 

" It now approached six o'clock in the evening ; and as I 
had eaten no breakfast, and as my spirits were raised, my 
appiStite for dinner grew uncommonly keen. At length the 
old woman came into the room with two plates, one spoon, 
and a dirty cloth, which she laid upon the table. This ap- 
pearance, without increasing my spirits, did not diminish my 
appetite. My protectress soon returned with a small bowl 
of sago, a small porringer of sour milk, a loaf of stale brown 
bread, and the heel of an old cheese all over crawling with 
mites. My friend apologized that his illness obliged him to 
live on slops, and that better fare was not in the house ; 
observing, at the same time, that a milk diet was certainly 
the most healthful ; and at eight o'clock he again recommended 
a regular life, declaring that for his part he would lie down with 
the Lamb and rise with the larTc. My hunger was at this time 
so exceedingly sharp that I wished for another slice of the loaf, 
but was obliged to go to bed without even that refreshment. 

" This lenten entertainment I had received made me resolve 
to depart as soon as possible ; accordingly, next morning, when 
I spoke of going, he did not oppose my resolution ; he rather 
commended my design, adding some very sage counsel upon 
the occasion. ' To be sure,' said he, ' the longer you stay away 
from your mother, the more you will grieve her and your 
other friends ; and possibly they are already afflicted at hearing 
of this foolish expedition you have made.' Notwithstanding all 
this, and without any hope of softening such a sordid heart, I 
again renewed the tale of my distress, and asking ' how he thought 
I could travel above a hundred miles upon one half crown ? ' 
I begged to borrow a single guinea, which I assured him should 
be repaid with thanks. ' And you know, sir,' said I, 'it is no 
more than I have done for you.' To which he firmly answered, 
' Why, look you, Mr. Goldsmith, that is neither here nor there. 



26 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

I have paid you all you ever lent me, and this sickness of mine 
has left me bare of cash. But I have bethought myself of a 
conveyance for you ; sell your horse, and I will furnish you a 
much better one to ride on.' I readily grasped at his proposal, 
and begged to see the nag ; on which he led me to his bed- 
chamber, and from under the bed he pulled out a stout oak 
stick. ' Here he is,' said he ; ' take this in your hand, and it 
will carry you to your m^other's with more safety than such a 
horse as you ride.' I was in doubt, when I got it into my 
hand, whether I should not, in the first place, apply it to his 
pate ; but a rap at the street door made the wretch fly to it, 
and when I returned to the parlor, he introduced me, as if 
nothing of the kind had happened, to the gentleman who 
entered, as Mr. Goldsmith, his most ingenious and worthy 
friend, of whom he had so often heard him speak with rapture. 
I could scarcely compose myself; and must have betrayed in- 
dignation in my mien to the stranger, who was a counsellor-at- 
law in the neighborhood, a man of engaging aspect and polite 
address. 

" After spending an hour, he asked my friend and me to 
dine with him at his house. This I declined at first, as I 
wished to have no farther communication with my hospitable 
friend ; but at the solicitation of both I at last consented, 
determined as I was by two motives ; one, that I was preju- 
diced in favor of the looks and manner of the counsellor ; and 
the other, that I stood in need of a comfortable dinner. And 
there, indeed, I found every thing that I could wish, abundance 
without profusion, and elegance without affectation. In the 
evening, when my old friend, who had eaten very plentifully 
at his neighbor's table, but talked again of lying down with 
the lamb, made a motion to me for retiring, our generous host 
requested I should take a bed with him, upon which I plainly 
told my old friend that he might go home and take care of 
the horse he had given me, but that I should never re-enter his 
doors. He went away with a laugh, leaving me to add this 
to the other little things the counsellor already knew of his 
plausible neighbor. 

" And now, my dear mother, I found sufficient to reconcile 
me to all my follies ; for here I spent three whole days. The 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 27 

counsellor had two sweet girls to his daughters, who played 
enchantingly on the harpsichord ; and yet it was but a melan- 
choly pleasure I felt the first time I heard them ; for that 
being the first time also that either of them had touched the 
instrument since their mother's death, I saw the tears in silence 
trickle down their father's cheeks. I every day endeavored to 
go away, but every day was pressed and obliged to stay. On 
my going, the counsellor offered me his purse, with a horse and 
servant to convey me home ; but the latter I declined, and only 
took a guinea to bear my necessary expenses on the road. 

"Oliver Goldsmith. 
" To Mrs. Anne Goldsmith, Bally mahon." 

Such is the story given by the poet-errant of this his second 
sally in quest of adventures. We cannot but think it was here 
and there touched up a little with the fanciful pen of the future 
essayist, with a view to amuse his mother and soften her vexa- 
tion ; but even in these respects it is valuable as showing the 
early play of his humor, and his happy knack of extracting 
sweets from that worldly experience which to others yields 
nothing but bitterness. 

CHAPTER IV 

Sallies forth as a law student — Stumbles at the outset — Cousin Jane 
and the valentine — A family oracle — Sallies forth as a student of 
medicine — Hocus-pocus of a boarding-house — Transformations 
of a leg of mutton — The mock ghost — Sketches of Scotland — Trials 
of toadyism — A poet's purse for a Continental tour 

A NEW consultation was held among Goldsmith's friends as 
to his future course, and it was determined he should try the 
law. His uncle Contarine agreed to advance the necessary 
funds, and actually furnished him with fifty pounds, with which 
he set off for London, to enter on his studies at the Temple. 
Unfortunately, he fell in company at Dublin with a Roscommon 
acquaintance, one whose wits had been sharpened about town, 
who beguiled him into a gambling-house, and soon left him as 
penniless as when he bestrode the redoubtable Fiddle-back. 

He was so ashamed of this fresh instance of gross heedless- 
ness and imprudence, that he remained some time in Dublin 
without communicating to his friends his destitute condition. 



28 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

They heard of it, however, and he was invited back to .the 
country, and indulgently forgiven by his generous uncle, but less 
readily by his mother, who was mortified and disheartened at 
seeing all her early hopes of him so repeatedly blighted. His 
brother Henry, too, began to lose patience at these successive 
failures, resulting from thoughtless indiscretion ; and a quarrel 
took place, which for some time interrupted their usually 
affectionate intercourse. 

The only home where poor erring Goldsmith still received 
a welcome, was the parsonage of his affectionate forgiving uncle. 
Here he used to talk of literature with the good simple-hearted 
man, and delight him and his daughter with his verses. Jane, 
his early playmate, was now the woman grown ; their inter- 
course was of a more intellectual kind than formerly ; they 
discoursed of poetry and music ; she played on the harpsichord, 
and he accompanied her with his flute. The music may not 
have been very artistic, as he never performed but by ear ; it 
had probably as much merit as the poetry, which, if we may 
judge by the following specimen, was as yet but juvenile : 

TO A YOUNG LADY ON VALENTINE'S DAY, 

WITH THE DRAWING OF A HEART 

With submission at your shrine, 
Comes a heart your Valentine ; 
From the side where once it grew, 
See it panting flies to you. 
Take it, fair one, to your breast, 
Soothe the fluttering thing to rest ; 
Let the gentle, spotless toy, 
Be your sweetest, greatest joy ; 
Every night when wrapp'd in sleep, 
Next your heart the conquest keep ; 
Or if dreams your fancy move, 
Hear it whisper me and love ; 
Then in pity to the swain, 
"Who must heartless else remain, 
Soft as gentle dewy show'rs, 
Slow descend on April flow'rs ; 
Soft as gentle riv'lets glide. 
Steal unnoticed to my side ; 
If the gem you have to spare, 
Take your own and place it there. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 29 

If this Valentine was intended for the fair Jane, and expres- 
sive of a tender sentiment indulged by the stripling poet, it 
was unavailing ; as not long afterwards she was married to a 
Mr. Lawder. We trust, however, it was but a poetical passion 
of that transient kind which grows up in idleness and exhales 
itself in rhyme. While Oliver was thus piping and poetizing 
at the parsonage, his uncle Contarine received a visit from Dean 
Goldsmith of Cloyne ; a kind of magnate in the wide, but 
improvident family connection, throughout which his word was 
law and almost rjspel. This august dignitary was pleased to 
discover signs ox talent in Oliver, and suggested that as he had 
attempted di'vinity and law without success, he should now try 
physic, ^.iie advice came from too important a source to be 
disregarded, and it was determined to send him to Edinburgh 
to commence his studies. The Dean having given the advice, 
added to it, we trust, his blessing, but no money ; that was 
furnished from the scantier purses of Goldsmith's brother, his 
sister (Mrs. Hodson), and his ever-ready uncle, Contarine. 

It was in the autumn of 1752 that Goldsmith arrived in 
Edinburgh. His outset in that city came near adding to the 
list of his indiscretions and disasters. Having taken lodgings 
at haphazard, he left his trunk there, containing all his worldly 
effects, and sallied forth to see the town. After sauntering 
about the streets until a late hour, he thought of returning 
home, when, to his confusion, he found he had not acquainted 
himself with the name either of his landlady or of the street in 
which she lived. Fortunately, in the height of his whimsical 
perplexity, he met the cawdy or porter who had carried his 
trunk, and who now served him as a guide. 

He did not remain long in the lodgings in which he had put 
up. The hostess was too adroit at that hocus-pocus of the 
table which often is practised in cheap boarding-houses. No 
one could conjure a single joint through a greater variety of 
forms. A loin of mutton, according to Goldsmith's account, 
would serve him and two fellow-students a whole week. " A 
brandered chop was served up one day, a fried steak another, 
collops with onion sauce a third, and so on until the fleshy 
parts were quite consumed, when finally a dish of broth was 
manufactured from the bones on the seventh day, and the land- 



30 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

lady rested from her labors." Goldsmith had a good-humored 
mode of taking things, and for a short time amused himself 
with the shifts 'and expedients of his landlady, which struck 
him in a ludicrous manner ; he soon, however, fell in with 
fellow-students from his own country, whom he joined at more 
eligible quarters. 

He now attended medical lectures, and attached himself to 
an association of students called the Medical Society. He set 
out, as usual, with the best intentions, but, as usual, soon fell 
into idle, convivial, thoughtless habits. Edinburgh was indeed 
a place of sore trial for one of his tempeiame:'t. Convivial 
meetings were all the vogue, and the tavern was the universal 
rallying-place of good-fellowship. And then Goldsn.ith's inti- 
macies lay chiefly among the Irish students, who were always 
ready for a wild freak and frolic. Among them he was a prime 
favorite and somewhat of a leader, from his exuberance of spirits, 
his vein of humor, and his talent at singing an Irish song and 
telling an Irish story. 

His usual carelessness in money matters attended him. 
Though his supplies from home were scanty and irregular, 
he never could bring himself into habits of prudence and 
economy ; often he was stripped of all his present finances 
at play ; often he lavished them away in fits of unguarded 
charity or generosity. Sometimes among his boon companions 
he assumed a ludicrous swagger in money matters, which no 
one afterward was more ready than himself to laugh at. At 
a convivial meeting with a number of his fellow-students, he 
suddenly proposed to draw lots with any one present which of 
the two should treat the whole party to the play. The moment 
the proposition had bolted from his lips, his heart was in his 
throat. "To my great though secret joy," said he, "they all 
declined the challenge. Had it been accepted, and had I proved 
the loser, a part of my wardrobe must have been pledged in 
order to raise the money." 

At another of these meetings there was an earnest dis- 
pute on the question of ghosts, some being firm believers 
in the possibility of departed spirits returning to visit their 
friends and familiar haunts. One of the disputants set 
sail the next day for London, but the vessel put back through 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 31 

stress of weather. His return was unknown except to one of 
the believers in ghosts, who concerted with him a trick to be 
played off on the opposite party. In the evening, at a meeting 
of the students, the discussion was renewed ; and one of the 
most strenuous opposers of ghosts was asked whether he con- 
sidered himself proof against ocular demonstration 1 He per- 
sisted in his scoffing. Some solemn process of conjuration 
was performed, and the comrade supposed to be on his way to 
London made his appearance. The eftect was fatal. The 
unbeliever fainted at the sight, and ultimately went mad. 
We have no account of what share Goldsmith took in this trans- 
action, at which he was present. 

The following letter to his friend Bryanton contains some of 
Goldsmith's impressions concerning Scotland and its inhabit- 
ants, and gives indications of that humor which characterized 
some of his later writings. 

^''Robert Bryanton, at Ballymahon, Ireland. 

" Edinburgh, September 26th, 1753. 
"My dear Bob, 

" How many good excuses (and you know I was ever good 
at an excuse) might I call up to vindicate my past shameful 
silence. I might tell how I wrote a long letter on my first 
coming hither, and seem vastly angry at my not receiving an 
answer ; I might allege that business (with business you know 
I was always pestered) had never given me time to finger a 
pen. But I suppress those and twenty more as plausible, and 
as easily invented, since they might be attended with a slight 
inconvenience of being known to be lies. Let me then speak 
truth. An hereditary indolence (I have it from the mother's 
side) has hitherto prevented my writing to you, and still 
prevents my writing at least twenty-five letters more, due 
to my friends in Ireland. No turn-spit-dog gets up into his 
wheel with more reluctance than I sit down to write ; yet no 
dog ever loved the roast meat he turns better than I do him T 
now address. 

" Yet what shall I say now I am entered 1 Shall I tire 
you with a description of this unfruitful country; where I must 
lead you over their hills all brown with heath, or their valleys 



32 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

scarcely able to feed a rabbit 1 Man alone seems to be the 
only creature who has arrived to the natural size in this poor 
soil. Every part of the country presents the same dismal land- 
scape. Ko grove, nor brook, lend their music to cheer the 
stranger, or make the inhabitants forget their poverty. Yet 
with all these disadvantages to call him down to humility, a 
Scotchman is one of the proudest things alive. The poor have 
pride ever ready to relieve them. If mankind should happen 
to despise them, they are masters of their own admiration ; and 
that they can plentifully bestow upon themselves. 

"From their pride and poverty, as I take it, results one 
advantage this country enjoys ; namely, the gentlemen here 
are much better bred than among us. No such character here as 
our fox-hunters ; and they have expressed great surprise when 
I informed them, that some men in Ireland of one thousand 
pounds a year spend their whole lives in running after a hare, 
and drinking to be drunk. Truly if such a being, equipped in 
his hunting dress, came among a circle of Scotch gentry, they 
would behold him with the same astonishment that a country- 
man does King George on horseback. 

" The men here have generally high cheek bones, and are 
lean and swarthy, fond of actioni, dancing in particular. Now 
that I have mentioned dancing,fllet me say something of their 
balls,) which are very frequent here. When a stranger enters the 
dancmg-hall, he sees one end of the room taken up by the ladies, 
who sit dismally in a group by themselves ; — an the other 
end stand their pensive partners that are to be ; — ^ut no more 
intercourse between the sexes than there is between two coun- 
tries at war. \ The ladies indeed may ogle, and the gentlemen 
sigh ; but an embargo is laid on any closer commerce. At 
length, to interrupt hostilities, the lady directress, or intendant, 
04 what you will, pitches upon a lady and gentleman to walk a 
minuet; which they perform with a formality that approaches to 
despondence. After live or six couple have thus walked the gaunt- . 
let, all stand up to country dances ; each gentleman furnished 
with a partner from the aforesaid lady directress ; so they dance 
much, say nothing, and thus concludes our assembly. I told a 
Scotch gentleman that such profound silence resembled the 
ancient procession of the Roman matrons in honor of Ceres ; 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 33 

and the Scotch gentleman told me, (and, faith I believe he was 
right,) that I was a very great pedant for my pains. 

" Now I am come to the ladies ; and to show that I love 
Scotland, and every thing that belongs to so charming a coun- 
try, 1 insist on it, and will give him leave to break my head 
that denies it — that the Scotch ladies are ten thousand times 
liner and handsomer than the Irish. To be sure, now, I see 
your sisters Betty and Peggy vastly surprised at my partiality, 
— but tell them flatly, I don't value them — or their fine skins, 

or eyes, or good sense, or , a potato ; — for I say, and will 

maintain it ; and as a convincing proof (I am in a great pas- 
sion) of what I assert, the Scotch ladies say it themselves. 
But to be less serious ; where will you find a language so pret- 
tily become a pretty mouth as the broad Scotch? And the 
women here speak it in its highest purity ; for instance, teach 
one of your young ladies at home to pronounce the 'Whoar 
wull I gong 1 ' with a becoming widening of mouth, and I'll lay 
my life they'll wound every hearer. 

"We have no such character here as a coquet, but alas! 
how many envious prudes ! Some days ago I walked into my 
Lord Kilcoubry's (don't be surprised, my lord is but a glover),^ 
when the Duchess of Hamilton (that fair who sacrificed her 
beauty to her ambition, and her inward peace to a title and 
gilt equipage) passed by in her chariot ; her battered husband, 
or more properly the guardian of her charms, sat by her side. 
Straight envy began, in the shape of no less than three ladies 
who sat with me, to find faults in her faultless form. — ' For my 
part,' says the first, 'I think what I always thought, that the 
Duchess has too much of the red in her complexion.' 'Madam, 
I am of your opinion,' says the second ; ' I think her face has a 
palish cast too much on the delicate order.' ' And, let me tell 
you,' added the third lady, whose mouth was puckered up to 
the size of an issue, 'that the Duchess has fine lips, but she 
wants a mouth.' — At this every lady drew up her mouth as if 
going to pronounce the letter P. 

1 William Maclellan, who claimed the title, and whose son succeeded 
in establishing the claim in 1773. The father is said to have A^oted at 
the election of the sixteen Peers for Scotland ; and to have sold gloves 
in the lobby at this and other public assemblages. 



34 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

" But how ill, my Bob, does it become me to ridicule women 
with whom I have scarcely any correspondence ! There are, 'tis 
certain, handsome women here ; and 'tis certain they have hand- 
some men to keep them company. An ugly and poor man is 
society only for himself; and such society the world lets me en- 
joy in great abundance. Fortune has given you circumstances, 
and nature a person to look charming in the eyes of the fair. 
Nor do I envy my dear Bob such blessings, while I may sit 
down and laugh at the world and at myself — the n\pst ridicu- 
lous object in it. But you see I am grown downright splenetic, 
and perhaps the fit may continue till I receive an answer to 
this. I know you cannot send me much news from Ballyma- 
hon, but such as it is, send it all ; every thing you send will be 
agreeable to me. 

* ' Has George Conway put up a sign yet ; or John Finecly 
left off drinking drams ; or Tom Allen got a new wig ? But I 
leave you to your own choice what to wTite. While I live, know 
you have a true friend in yours, &c. &c. &c. 

" Oliver Goldsmith. 

"P.S. Give my sincere respects (not compliments, do you 
mind) to your agreeable family, and give my service to my 
mother, if you see her ; for, as you express it in Ireland, I have 

a sneaking kindness for her still. Direct to me, , Student 

in Physic, in Edinburgh." 

Nothing worthy of preservation appeared from his pen dur- 
ing his residence in Edinburgh ; and indeed his poetical powers, 
highly as they had been estimated by his friends, had not as 
yet produced any thing of superior merit. He made on one oc- 
casion a month's excursion to the Highlands. "I set out the 
first day on foot," says he, in a letter to his uncle Contarine, 
" but an ill-natured corn I have on my toe, has for the future 
prevented that cheap mode of travelling ; so the second day I 
hired a horse, about the size of a ram, and he walked away (trot 
he could not) as pensive as his master," 

During his residence in Scotland his convivial talents gained 
him at one time attentions in a high quarter, which, however, 
he had the good sense to appreciate correctly. " I have spent," 
says he, in one of his letters, " more than a fortnight every sec- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 35 

ond day at the Duke of Hamilton's ; but it seems they like me 
more as a jester than as a companion, so I disdained so servile 
an employment as unworthy my calling as a physician." Here 
we again find the origin of another passage in his autobiog- 
raphy, under the character of the " Man in Black," wherein 
that worthy figures as a flatterer to a great man. "At first," 
says he," I was surprised that the situation of a flatterer at a 
great man's table could be thought disagreeable ; there was no 
great trouble in listening attentively when his lordship spoke, 
and iSughing when he looked round for applause. This, even 
good manners might have obliged me to perform. I found, 
however, too soon, his lordship was a greater dunce than my- 
self, and from that moment flattery was at an end. I now 
rather aimed at setting him right, than at receiving his absurdi- 
ties with submission : to flatter those we do not know is an 
easy task ; but to flatter our intimate acquaintances, all whose 
foibles are strongly in our eyes, is drudgery insupportable. 
Every time I now opened my lips in praise, my falsehood went 
to my conscience ; his lordship soon perceived me to be very un- 
fit for his service : I was therefore discharged ; my patron at the 
same time being graciously pleased to observe that he believed 
I was tolerably good-natured, and had not the least harm in 
me."i 

After spending two winters at Edinburgh, Goldsmith pre- 
pared to finish his medical studies on the Continent, for which 
his uncle Contarine agreed to furnish the funds. " I intend," 
said he, in a letter to his uncle, " to visit Paris, where the 
great Farheim, Petit, and Du Hammel de Monceau instruct 
their pupils in all the branches of medicine. They speak 
French, and- consequently I shall have much the advantage 
of most of my countrymen, as I am perfectly acquainted with 
that language, and few who leave Ireland are so. I shall 
spend the spring and summer in Paris, and the beginning of 
next winter go to Leyden. The great Albinus is still alive 
there, and 'twill be proper to go, though only to have it said 
that we have studied in so famous a university. 

" As I shall not have another opportunity of receiving money 
from your bounty till my return to Ireland, so I have drawn 

1 Citizen of the World, Letter xxvii. 



36 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

for the last sum that I hope I shall ever trouble you for ; 'tis 
^20. And now, dear Sir, let me here acknowledge the hu- 
mility of the station in which you found me ; let me tell how 
I was despised by most, and hateful to myself Poverty, hope- 
less poverty, was my lot, and Melancholy was beginning to 

make me her own. When you but I stop here, to inquire 

how your health goes on? How does my cousin Jenny, and 
has she recovered her late complaint? How does my poor 
Jack Goldsmith? I fear his disorder is of such a nature as 
he won't easily recover. I wish, my dear Sir, you would make 
me happy by another letter before I go abroad, for there I shall 
hardly hear from you. . . . Give my — how shall I express 
it? Give my earnest love to Mr. and Mrs. Lawder." 

Mrs. Lawder was Jane, his early playmate — the object of 
his valentine — his first poetical inspiration. She had been for 
some time married. 

Medical instruction, it will be perceived, was the ostensible 
motive for this visit to the Continent, but the real one, in all 
probability, was his long-cherished desire to see foreign parts. 
This, however, he would not acknowledge even to himself, but 
sought to reconcile his roving propensities with some grand 
moral purpose. " I esteem the traveller who instructs the 
heart," says he, in one of his subsequent writings, "but despise 
him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves 
home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher ; but he 
who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse 
of cariosity, is only a vagabond." ^ , He, of course, was to 
travel as a philosopher, and in truth his outfits for a Conti- 
nental tour were in character. " I shall carry just £33 to 
France," said he, " with good store of clothes, shirts, &c., and 
that with economy will suffice." He forgot to make mention 
of his flute, which it will be found had occasionally to come in 
play when economy could not replenish his purse, nor philosophy 
find him a supper. Thus slenderly provided with money, pru- 
dence, or experience, and almost as slightly guarded against 
" hard knocks " as the hero of La Mancha, whose head-piece 
was half iron, half pasteboard, he made his final sally forth 
upon the world ; hoping all things ; believing all things : little 

1 Citizen of the World, Letter vii. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 37 

anticipating the checkered ills in store for him ; little thinking 
when he penned his valedictory letter to his good uncle Con- 
tarine, that he was never to see him more ; never to return 
after all his wandering to the friend of his infancy ; never to 
revisit his early and fondly-remembered haunts at " sweet 
Lissoy" and Ballymahon. 



CHAPTER V 

The agreeable fellow-passengers — Risks from friends picked up by the 
wayside — Sketches of Holland and the Dutch — Shifts while a poor 
student at Leyden — The tulip speculation — The provident flute — 
Sojourn at Paris — Sketch of Voltaire — Travelling shifts of a philo- 
sophic vagabond 

His usual indiscretion attended Goldsmith at the very out- 
set of his foreign enterprise. He had intended to take shipping 
at Leith for Holland ; but on arriving at that port, he found 
a ship about to sail for Bordeaux, with six agreeable passengers, 
whose acquaintance he had probably made at the inn. He Avas 
not a man to resist a sudden impulse ; so, instead of embarking 
for Holland, he found himself ploughing the seas on his way 
to the other side of the continent. Scarcely had the ship been 
two days at sea, when she was driven by stress of weather to 
Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Here "of course" Goldsmith and his 
agreeable fellow-passengers found it expedient to go on shore 
and " refresh themselves after the fatigues of the voyage." 
" Of course " they frolicked and made merry until a late hour 
in the evening, when, in the midst of their hilarity, the door 
was burst open, and a Serjeant and twelve grenadiers entered 
with fixed bayonets, and took the whole convivial party prisoners. 

It seems that the agreeable companions with whom our green- 
horn had struck up such a sudden intimacy, were Scotchmen in 
the French service, who had been in Scotland enlisting recruits 
for the French army. 

In vain Goldsmith protested his innocence ; he was marched 
off with his fellow revellers to prison, whence he with difficulty 
obtained his release at the end of a fortnight. With his cus- 
tomary facility, however, at palliating his misadventures, he 



38 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

found every thing turn out for the best. His imprisonment 
saved his life, for during his detention the ship proceeded on 
her voyage, but was wrecked at the mouth of the Garonne and 
all on board perished. 

Goldsmith's second embarkation was for Holland direct, and 
in nine days he arrived at Rotterdam, whence he proceeded, 
without any more deviations, to Leyden. He gives a whimsical 
picture, in one of his letters, of the appearance of the Hol- 
landers. " The modern Dutchman is quite a different creature 
from him of former times : he in every thing imitates a French- 
man but in his easy, disengaged air. He is vastly ceremonious, 
and is, perhaps, exactly what a Frenchman might have been 
in the reign of Louis XIV. Such are the better bred. But 
the downright Hollander is one of the oddest figures in nature. 
Upon a lank head of hair he wears a half-cocked narrow hat, 
laced with black riband ; no coat, but seven waistcoats and 
nine pair of breeches, so that his hips reach up almost to his 
armpits. This well-clothed vegetable is now fit to see company 
or make love. But what a pleasing creature is the object of 
his appetite ! why, she wears a large fur cap, with a deal of 
Flanders lace ; and for every pair of breeches he carries, she 
puts on two petticoats. 

" A Dutch lady burns nothing about her phlegmatic admirer 
but his tobacco. You must know, sir, every woman carries in 
her hand a stove of coals, which, when she sits, she snugs 
under her petticoats, and at this chimney, dozing Strephon 
lights his pipe." 

In the same letter he contrasts Scotland and Holland. 
" There hills and rocks intercept every prospect ; here it is 
all a continued plain. There you might see a well-dressed 
Duchess issuing from a dirty close, and here a dirty Dutch- 
man inhabiting a palace. The Scotch may be compared to 
a tulip, planted in dung ; but I can never see a Dutchman 
in his own house, but I think of a magnificent Egyptian temple 
dedicated to an ox." 

The country itself awakened his admiration. " Nothing," 
said he, " can equal its beauty ; wherever I turn my eyes, fine 
houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottos, vistas, present 
themselves ; but when you enter their towns you are charmed 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 89 

beyond description. No misery is to be seen here ; every one 
is useftdly employed." And again, in his noble description in 
"The Traveller": 

" To men of other minds my fancy flies, 
Imbosom'd in the deep where Holland lies. 
Methinks her patient sons before me stand, 
Where the broad ocean leans against the land, 
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide, 
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride. 
* Onward, methinks, and diligently slow, 

The firm connected bulwark seems to grow ; 
Spreads its long arms amid the watery roar, 
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore. 
While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile. 
Sees an amphibious world before him smile ; 
The slow canal, the yellow blossom' d vale, 
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail. 
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain, 
A new creation rescued from his reign." 

He remained about a year at Leyden, attending the lectures 
of Gaubius on chemistry and Albinus on anatomy ; though his 
studies are said to have been miscellaneous, and directed to 
literature rather than science. The thirty-three pounds with 
which he had set out on his travels were soon consumed, and 
he was put to many a shift to meet his expenses until his pre- 
carious remittances should arrive. He had a good friend on 
these occasions in a fellow-student and countryman, named 
Ellis, who afterwards rose to eminence as a physician. He 
used frequently to loan small sums to Goldsmith, which were 
always scrupulously paid. Ellis discovered the innate merits 
of the poor awkward student, and used to declare in after life that 
it was a common remark in Leyden, that " in all the peculiari- 
ties of Goldsmith, an elevation of mind was to be noted; a 
philosophical tone and manner ; the feelings of a gentleman, 
and the language and information of a scholar." 

Sometimes, in his emergencies. Goldsmith undertook to 
teach the English language. It is true he was ignorant of the 
Dutch, but he had a smattering of the French, picked up 
among the Irish priests at Ballymahon. He depicts his whim- 
sical embarrassment in this respect, in his account in the 



40 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

" Vicar of Wakefield " of the Philosophical Vagabond ^ who 
went to Holland to teach the natives English, without knowing 
a word of their own language. Sometimes, when sorely 
pinched, and sometimes, perhaps, when flush, he resorted to 
the gambling tables, which in those days abounded in Holland. 
His good friend Ellis repeatedly warned him against this un- 
Ibrtunate propensity, but in vain. It brought its own cure, or 
rather its own punishment, by stripping him of every shilling. 

Ellis once more stepped in to his relief with a true Irish- 
man's generosity, but with more considerateness than gen- 
erally characterizes an Irishman, for he only granted pecuniary 
aid on condition of his quitting the sphere of danger. Gold- 
smith gladly consented to leave Holland, being anxious to visit 
other parts. He intended to proceed to Paris and pursue his 
studies there, and was furnished by his friend with money for 
the journey. Unluckily, he rambled into the garden of a florist 
just before quitting Leyden. The tulip mania was still preva- 
lent in Holland, and some species of that splendid flower 
brought immense prices. In wandering through the garden 
Goldsmith recollected that his uncle Contarine was a tulip 
fancier. The thought suddenly struck him that here was an 
opportunity of testifying, in a delicate manner, his sense of that 
generous uncle's past kindnesses. In an instant his hand was 
in his pocket ; a number of choice and costly tulip-roots were 
purchased and packed up for Mr. Contarine; and it was not 
until he had paid for them that he bethought himself that he 
had spent all the money borrowed for his travelling expenses. 
Too proud, however, to give up his journey, and too shame- 
faced to make another appeal to his friend's liberality, he 
determined to travel on foot, and depend upon chance and 
good luck for the means of getting forward ; and it is said that 
he actually set off on a tour of the Continent, in February, 
1755, with but one spare shirt, a flute, and a single guinea. 

" Blessed," says one of his biographers, " with a good con- 
stitution, an adventurous spirit, and with that thoughtless, or, 
perhaps, happy disposition which takes no care for to-morrow, 
he continued his travels for a long time in spite of innumerable 
privations." In his amusing narrative of the adventures of a 

iRead Chap, xx, in the Vicar of Wakefield. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 41 

Philosophical Vagabond in the " Vicar of Wakefield," we find 
shadowed out the expedients he pursued. *'I had some knowl- 
edge of music, with a tolerable voice ; I now turned what was 
once my amusement into a present means of subsistence. I 
passed among the harmless peasants of Flanders, and among 
such of the French as were poor enough to be very merry, for 
I ever found them sprightly in proportion to their wants. 
Whenever I approached a peasant's house towards nightfall, I 
played one of my merriest tunes, and that procured me not only 
a lodging, but subsistence for the next day ; but in truth I 
must own, whenever I attempted to entertain persons of a 
higher rank, they always thought my performance odious, and 
never made me any return for my endeavors to please them." ^ 

At Paris he attended the chemical lectures of Rouelle, then 
in great vogue, where he says he witnessed as bright a circle of 
beauty as graced the court of Versailles. His love of the- 
atricals, also, led him to attend the performances of the cele- 
brated actress Mademoiselle Olairon, with which he was greatly 
delighted. He seems to have looked upon the state of society 
with the eye of a philosopher, but to have read the signs of the 
times with the prophetic eye of a poet. In his rambles about 
the environs of Paris, he was struck with the immense quanti- 
ties of game running about almost in a tame state ; and saw in 
those costly and rigid preserves for the amusement and luxury 
of the privileged few, a sure "badge of the slavery of the 
people." This slavery he predicted was drawing towards a 
close. "When I consider that these parliaments, the members 
of which are all created by the court, and the presidents of 
which can only act by immediate direction, presume even to 
mention privileges and freedom, who till of late received direc- 
tions from the throne with implicit humility; when this is 
considered, I cannot help fancying that the genius of Freedom 
has entered that kingdom in disguise. If they have but three 
weak monarch s more successively on the throne, the mask will 
be laid aside, and the country will certainly once more be free." ^ 
Events have testified to the sage forecast of the poet. 

During a brief sojourn in Paris, he appears to have gained 

1 Present State of Polite Learning, Chap. vii. 

2 Citizen of the World, Letter Ivi. 



42 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

access to valuable society, and to have had the honor and 
pleasure of making the acquaintance of Voltaire ; of whom, in 
after years, he wrote a memoir. " As a companion," says he, 
" no man ever exceeded him when he pleased to lead the con- 
versation ; which, however, was not always the case. In com- 
pany which he either disliked or despised, few could be more 
reserved than he ; but when he was warmed in discourse, and 
got over a hesitating manner, which sometimes he was subject 
to, it was rapture to hear him. His meagre visage seemed 
insensibly to gather beauty : every muscle in it had meaning, 
and his eye beamed with unusual brightness. The person who 
writes this memoir," continues he, " remembers to have seen 
him in a select company of wits of both sexes at Paris, when 
the subject happened to turn upon English taste and learning. 
Fontenelle, (then nearly a hundred years old,) who was of the 
party, and who being unacquainted with the language or 
authors of the country he undertook to condemn, with a spirit 
truly vulgar began to revile both. Diderot, who liked the 
English, and knew something of their literary pretensions, at- 
tempted to vindicate their poetry and learning, but with un- 
equal abilities. The company quickly perceived that Fontenelle 
was superior in the dispute, and were surprised at the silence 
which Voltaire had preserved all the former part of the night, 
particularly as the conversation happened to turn upon one 
of his favorite topics. Fontenelle continued his triumph until 
about twelve o'clock, when Voltaire appeared at last roused 
from his reverie. His whole frame seemed animated. He 
began his defence with the utmost defiance mixed with spirit, 
and now and then let fall the finest strokes of raillery upon his 
antagonist ; and his harangue lasted till three in the morning. 
I must confess, that, whether from national partiality, or from 
the elegant sensibility of his manner, I never was so charmed, 
nor did I ever remember so absolute a victory as he gained in 
this dispute." ^ Goldsmith's ramblings took him into Germany 
and Switzerland, from which last-mentioned country he sent to 
his brother in Ireland the first brief sketch, afterwards ampli- 
fied into his poem of " The Traveller." 

At Geneva he became travelling tutor to a mongrel young 

1 Memoirs of Voltaire, Globe edition of Goldsmith's works, page 500, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 43 

gentleman, son of a London pawnbroker, who had been sud- 
denly elevated into fortune and absurdity by the death of 
an uncle. The youth, before setting up for a gentleman, had 
been an attorney's apprentice, and was an arrant pettifogger in 
money matters. Never were two beings more illy assorted 
than he and Goldsmith. We may form an idea of the tutor 
and the pupil from the following extract from the narrative of 
the Philosophic Vagabond. 

"I was to be the young gentleman's governor, but with a, 
proviso that he should always be permitted to govern himself. 
My pupil, in fact, understood the art of guiding in money con- 
cerns much better than I. He was heir to a fortune of about 
two hundred thousand pounds, left him by an uncle in the 
West Indies ; and his guardians, to qualify him for the 
management of it, had bound him apprentice to an attorney. 
Thus avarice was his prevailing passion ; all his questions on 
the road were, how money might be saved — which was the 
least expensive course of travel — whether any thing could be 
bought that would turn to account when disposed of again in 
London? Such curiosities on the way as could be seen for 
nothing, he was ready enough to look at ; but if the sight 
of them was to be paid for, he usually asserted that he had 
been told that they were not worth seeing. He never paid 
a bill that he would not observe how amazingly expensive 
travelling was : and all this though not yet twenty-one." 

In this sketch Goldsmith undoubtedly shadows forth his 
annoyances as travelling tutor to this concrete young gentle- 
man, compounded of the pawnbroker, the pettifogger, and the 
West Indian heir, with an overlaying of the city miser. They 
had continual difl&culties on all points of expense until they 
reached Marseilles, where both were glad to separate. 

Once more on foot, but freed from the irksome duties of 
"bear leader," and wdth some of his pay, as tutor, in his 
pocket, Goldsmith continued his half vagrant peregrinations 
through part of France and Piedmont, and some of the Italian 
States. He had acquired, as has been shown, a habit of shift- 
ing along and living by expedients, and a new one presented 
itself in Italy. " My skill in music," says he, in the Philosophic 
Vagabond, " could avail me nothing in a country where every 



44 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

peasant was a better musician than I ; but by this time I had 
acquired another talent, which answered my purpose as well, 
and this was a skill in disputation. In all the foreign uni- 
versities and convents there are, upon certain days, philo- 
sophical theses maintained against every adventitious disputant : 
for which, if the champion opposes with any dexterity, he can 
claim a gratuity in money, a dinner, and a bed for one night." ^ 
Though a poor wandering scholar, his reception in these learned 
piles was as free from humiliation as in the cottages of the 
peasantry. " With the members of these establishments," said 
he, "I could converse on topics of literature, and then I al- 
ways forgot the meanness of my circumstances^ 

At Padua, where he remained some months, he is said to 
have taken his medical degree. It is probable he was brought 
to a pause in this city by the death of his uncle Contariue ; 
who had hitherto assisted him in his wanderings by occasional, 
though, of course, slender remittances. Deprived of this source 
of supplies, he wrote to his friends in Ireland, and especially to 
his brother-in-law, Hodson, describing his destitute situation. 
His letters brought him neither money nor reply. It appears, 
from subsequent correspondence, that his brother-in-law actually 
exerted himself to raise a subscription for his assistance among 
his relatives, friends, and acquaintance, but without success. 
Their faith and hope in him were most probably at an end ; as 
yet he had disappointed them at every point, he had given none 
of the anticipated proofs of talent, and they were too poor to 
support what they may have considered the wandering propen- 
sities of a heedless spendthrift. 

Thus left to his own precarious resources, Goldsmith gave 
up ail further wandering in Italy, without visiting the south, 
though Rome and Naples must have held out powerful attrac- 
tions to one of his poetical cast. Once more resuming his pil- 
grim staff, he turned his face toward England, " walking along 
from city to city, examining mankind more nearly, and seeing 
both sides of the picture." In traversing France his flute — 
his magic flute ! — was once more in requisition, as we may con- 
clude by the following passage in his " Traveller " : 

1 Vicar of Wakefield, Chap. xx. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 45 

*' Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease, 
Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please 
How often have I led thy sportive choir 
With tuneless pipe beside the murmuring Loire ! 
Where shading elms along the margin grew. 
And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew ; 
And haply though my harsh note falt'ring still, 
But mocked all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill ; 
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, 
And dance forgetful of the noontide hour. 
Alike all ages -. Dames of ancient days 
Have led their children through the mirthful maze, 
And the gay grandsire, skill' d in gestic lore. 
Has frisk' d beneath the burden of three-score." 



CHAPTER VI 

Landing in England — Shifts of a man without money — The pestle 
and mortar — Theatricals in a barn — Launch upon London — A 
city night scene — Struggles with penury — IMiseries of a tutor — A 
doctor in the suburb — Poor practice and second-hand finery — 
A tragedy in embryo — Project of tlie written mountains 

After two years spent in roving about the Continent, " pur- 
suing novelty," as he said, "and losing content," Goldsmith 
landed at Dover early in 1756. He appears to have had no 
definite plan of action. The death of his uncle Contarine, and 
the neglect of his relatives and friends to reply to his letters, 
seem to have produced in him a temporary feeling of loneliness 
and destitution, and his only thought was to get to London, and 
throw himself upon the world. But how was he to get there? 
His purse was empty. England was to him as completely a 
foreign land as any part of the continent, and where on earth is 
a penniless stranger more destitute ? His flute and his philos- 
ophy were no longer of any avail ; the English boors cared noth- 
ing for music ; there were no convents ; and as to the learned 
and the clergy, not one of them would give a vagrant scholar 
a supper and night's lodging for the best thesis that ever was 
argued. "You may easily imagine," says he, in a subsequent 
letter to his brother-in-law, " what difficulties I had to en- 
counter, left as I was without friends, recommendations, money, 
or impudence, and that in a country where being born an Irish- 



46 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

• 

man was sufficient to keep me unemployed. Many, in such 
circumstances would have had recourse to the friar's cord or the 
suicide's halter. But, with all my follies, I had principle to re- 
sist the one, and resolution to combat the other." 

He applied at one place, we are told, for employment in the 
shop of a country apothecary ; but all his medical science gath- 
ered in foreign universities could not gain him the management 
of a pestle and mortar. He even resorted, it is said, to the 
stage as a temporary expedient, and figured in low comedy at a 
country town in Kent. This accords with his last shift of the 
Philosophic Vagabond, and with the knowledge of country the- 
atricals displayed in his "Adventures of a Strolling Player,"^ 
or may be a story suggested by them. All this part of his 
career, however, in which he must have trod the lowest paths 
of humility, are only to be conjectured from vague traditions, or 
scraps of autobiography gleaned from his miscellaneous writings. 

At length we find him launched on the great metropolis, or 
rather drifting about its streets, at night, in the gloomy month 
of February, with but a few half-pence in his pocket. The 
Deserts of Arabia are not more dreary and inhospitable than 
the streets of London at such a time, and to a stranger in such 
a plight. Do we want a picture as an illustration ? We have 
it in his own works, and furnished, doubtless, from his own 
experience. 

" The clock has just struck two ; what a gloom hangs all 
around ! no sound is heard but of the chiming clock, or the dis- 
tant watch-dog. How few appear in those streets, which but 
some few hours ago were crowded ! But who are those who 
make the streets their couch, and find a short repose from 
wretchedness at the doors of the opulent ? They are strangers, 
wanderers, and orphans, whose circumstances are too humble to 
expect redress, and whose distresses are too great even for pity. 
Some are without the covering even of rags, and others emaci- 
ated with disease ;.the world has disclaimed them ; society turns 
its back upon their distress, and has given them up to naked- 
ness and hunger. These poor shivering females have once seen 
happier days, and been flattered, into beauty. They are now 
turned out to meet the severity of winter. Perhaps now, lying 

1 Vicar of Wakefield, Chap. xx. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 47 

at the doors of their betrayers, they sue to wretches whose 
hearts are insensible, or debauchees who may curse, but will 
not relieve them. 

" Why, why was I born a man, and yet see the sufferings of 
wretches I cannot relieve ! Poor houseless creatures ! The 
world will give you reproaches, but will not give you relief."^ 

Poor houseless Goldsmith ! we may here ejaculate — to what 
shifts he must have been driven to find shelter and sustenance 
for himself in this his first venture into London ! Many years 
afterwards, in the days of his social elevation, he startled a 
polite circle at Sir Joshua Reynolds's by humorously dating an 
anecdote about the time he " lived among the beggars of Axe 
Lane." Such may have been the desolate quarters with which 
he was fain to content himself when thus adrift upon the 
town, with but a few half-pence in his pocket. 

The first authentic trace we have of him in this new part of 
his career is filling the situation of an usher to a school, and 
even this employ he obtained with some difficulty, after a refer- 
ence for a character to his friends in the University of Dublin. 
In the "Vicar of Wakefield" he makes George Primrose 
undergo a whimsical catechism concerning the requisites for an 
usher. " Have you been bred apprentice to the business ? " 
" No." " Then you won't do for a school. Can you dress the 
boys' hair ? " " No." " Then you won't do for a school. Can 
you lie three in a bed?" "No." "Then you will never do 
for a school. Have you a good stomach?" "Yes." "Then 
you will by no means* do for a school. I have been an usher in 
a boarding school, myself, and may I die of an anodyne neck- 
lace, but I had rather be under-turnkey in Newgate. I was 
up early and late : I was browbeat by the master, hated for my 
ugly face by the mistress, worried by the boys." ^ 

Goldsmith remained but a short time in this situation, and 
to the mortifications experienced there, we doubtless owe the 
picturings given in his writings of the hardships of an usher's 
life. "He is generally," says he, "the laughing-stock of the 
school. Every trick is played upon him ; the oddity of his 
manner, his dress, or his language, is a fund of eternal ridicule; 

1 Citizen of the World, Letter cxvii. 

2 Vicar of Wakefield, Chap. xx. 



48 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

the master himself now and then cannot avoid joining in 
the laugh ; and the poor wretch, eternally resenting this ill 

usage, lives in a state of war with all the family." " He is 

obliged, perhaps, to sleep in the same bed with the French 
teacher, who disturbs him for an hour every night in papering 
and filleting his hair, and stinks worse than a carrion with his 
rancid pomatums, when he lays his head beside him on the 
bolster," ^ 

His next shift was as assistant in the laboratory of a chemist 
near Fish-street Hill. After remaining here a. few months, he 
heard that Dr. Sleigh, who had been his friend and fellow- 
student at Edinburgh, was in London. Eager to meet with a 
friendly face in this land of strangers, he immediately called on 
him ; "but though it was Sunday, and it is to be supposed I 
was in my best clothes, Sleigh scarcely knew me — such is the 
tax the unfortunate pay to poverty. However, when he did 
recollect me, I found his heart as warm as ever, and he shared his 
purse and friendship with me during his continuance in London." 

Through the advice and assistance of Dr. Sleigh, he now 
commenced the practice of medicine, but in a small way, in 
Bankside, Southwark, and chiefly among the poor; for he 
wanted the figure, address, polish, and management, to succeed 
among the rich. His old schoolmate and college companion, 
Beatty, who used to aid him with his purse at the university, 
met him about this time, decked out in the tarnished finery of 
a second-hand suit of green and gold, with a shirt and neck- 
cloth of a fortnight's wear. 

Poor Goldsmith endeavored to assume a prosperous air in the 
eyes of his early associate. " He was practising physic," he 
said, " and doing very well I " At this moment poverty was 
pinching him to the bone in spite of his practice and his dirty 
finery. His fees were necessarily small, and ill paid, and he 
was fain to seek some precarious assistance from his pen. Here 
his quondam fellow-student. Dr. Sleigh, was again of service, 
introducing him to some of the booksellers, who gave him 
occasional, though starveling employment. According to tra- 
dition, however, his most efficient patron just now was a 
journeyman printer, one of his poor patients of Bankside ; who 

1 The Bee, No. vi. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 49 

had formed a good opinion of his talents, and perceived his 
poverty and his literary shifts. The printer was in the em- 
ploy of Mr. Samuel Richardson, the author of " Pamela," 
"Clarissa," and "Sir Charles Grandison"; who combined the 
novelist and the publisher, and was in flourishing circumstances. 
Through the journeyman's intervention Goldsmith is said to 
have become acquainted with Richardson, who employed him 
as reader and corrector of the press, at his printing establish- 
ment in Salisbury Court ; an occupation which he alternated 
with his medical duties. 

Being admitted occasionally to Richardson's parlor, he began 
to form literary acquaintances, among whom the most important 
was Dr. Young, the author of " Night Thoughts,"" a poem in 
the height of fashion. It is not probable, however, that much 
famiharity took place at the time between the literary lion of 
the day and the poor ^sculapius of Bankside, the humble 
corrector of the press. Still the communion with literary men 
had its effect to set his imagination teeming. Dr. Farr, one of 
his Edinburgh fellow-students, who was at London about this 
time, attending the hospitals and lectures, gives us an amusing 
account of Goldsmith in his literaiy character. 

" Early in January he called upon me one morning before I 
was up, and, on my entering the room, I recognized my old 
acquaintance, dressed in a rusty, full-trimmed black suit, with 
his pockets fidl of papers, which instantly reminded me of the 
poet in Garrick's farce of ' Lethe.' After we had finished our 
breakfast, he drew from his pocket part of a tragedy, which he 
said he had brought for my correction. In vain I pleaded ina- 
bility, when he began to read ; and every part on which I 
expressed a doubt as to the propriety was immediately blotted 
out. I then most earnestly pressed him not to trust to my 
judgment, but to take the opinion of persons better qualified to 
decide on dramatic compositions. He now told me he had sub- 
mitted his production, so far as he had written, to Mr. Richard- 
son, the author of ' Clarissa,' on which I peremptorily declined 
offering another criticism on the performance." 

From the graphic description given of him by Dr. Farr, 
it will be perceived that the tarnished finery of green and gold 
had been succeeded by a professional suit of black, to which, 



50 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

we are told, were added the wig and cane indispensable to 
medical doctors in those days. The coat was a second-hand 
one, of rusty velvet, with a patch on the left breast, which he 
adroitly covered with his three-cornered hat during his medical 
visits ; and we have an amusing anecdote of his contest of 
courtesy with a patient who persisted in endeavoring to relieve 
him from the hat, which only made him press it more devoutly 
to his heart. 

Nothing further has ever been heard of the tragedy men- 
tioned by Dr. Farr; it was probably never completed. The 
same gentleman speaks of a strange Quixotic scheme which 
Goldsmith had in contemplation at the time, " of going to 
decipher the inscriptions on the 'written mountains, though he 
was altogether ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which 
they might be supposed to be written." " The salary of three 
hundred pounds," adds Dr. Farr, "which had been left for the 
purpose, was the temptation." This was probably one of many 
dreamy projects with which his fervid brain was apt to teem. 
On such subjects he Avas prone to talk vaguely and magnificently, 
but inconsiderately, from a kindled imagination rather than a 
well-instructed judgment. He had always a great notion of 
expeditions to the East, and wonders to be seen and effected in 
the oriental countries. 

CHAPTER VII 

Life of a pedagogue — Kindness to schoolboys; pertness in return — 
Expensive charities — The Griifitlis and the Monthly Revieio — 
Toils of a literary hack — Rupture with the Griffiths 

Among the most cordial of Goldsmith's intimates in London 
during this time of precarious struggle, were certain of his 
former fellow-students in Edinburgh. One of these was the son 
of a Dr. Milner, a dissenting minister, who kept a classical school 
of eminence at Peckham, in Surrey. Young Milner had a fa- 
vorable opinion of Goldsmith's abilities and attainments, and 
cherished for him that good will which his genial nature seems 
ever to have inspired among his school and college associates. 
His father falling ill, the young man negotiated with Goldsmith 
to take temporary charge of the school. The latter readily con- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 51 

sented ; for he was discouraged by the slow growth of medical 
reputation and practice, and as yet had no confidence in the coy 
smiles of the muse. Laying by his wig and cane, therefore, 
and once more wielding the ferule, he resumed the character of 
the pedagogue, and for some time reigned as vicegerent over the 
academy at Peckham. He appears to have been well treated 
by both Dr. Milner and his wife : and became a favorite with 
the scholars from his easy, indulgent good nature. He mingled 
in their sports ; told them droll stories ; played on the flute 
for tkeir amusement, and spent his money in treating them to 
sweetmeats and other schoolboy dainties. His familiarity was 
sometimes carried too far ; he indulged in boyish pranks and 
practical jokes, and drew upon himself retorts in kind, which, 
however, he bore with great good humor. Once, indeed, he was 
touched to the quick by a piece of schoolboy pertness. After 
playing on the flute, he spoke with enthusiasm of music, as de- 
lightful in itself, and as a valuable accomplishment for a gentle- 
man, whereupon a youngster, with a glance at his ungainly 
person, wished to know if he considered himself a gentleman. 
Poor Goldsmith, feelingly alive to the awkwardness of his ap- 
pearance and the humility of his situation, winced at this 
unthinking sneer, which long rankled in his mind. 

As usual, while in Dr. Milner's employ, his benevolent 
feelings were a heavy tax upon his purse, for he never could 
resist a tale of distress, and was apt to be fleeced by every 
sturdy beggar ; so that, between his charity and his munificence, 
he was generally in advance of his slender salary. "You had 
better, Mr. Goldsmith, let me take care of your money," said 
Mrs. Milner one day, "as I do for some of the young gentle- 
men." — "In truth, madam, there is equal need ! " was the 
good-humored reply. 

Dr. Milner was a man of some literary pretensions, and 
wrote occasionally for the Monthly Review, of which a book- 
seller, by the name of Griffiths, was proprietor. This work 
was an advocate for Whig principles, and had been in pros- 
perous existence for nearly eight years. Of late, however, 
periodicals had multiplied exceedingly, and a formidable Tory 
rival had started up in the Critical Revieiv, published by 
Archibald Hamilton, a bookseller, and aided by the powerful 



52 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

and popular pen of Dr. Smollett. Griffiths was obliged to 
recruit his forces. While so doing he met Goldsmith, a humble 
occupant of a seat at Dr. Milner's table, and was struck with 
remarks on men and books, which fell from him in the course 
of conversation. He took occasion to sound him privately as 
to his inclination and capacity as a reviewer, and was furnished 
by him with specimens of his literary and critical talents. They 
proved satisfactory. The consequence was that Goldsmith once 
more changed his mode of life, and in April, 1757, became a 
contributor to the Monthly Review, at a small fixed salary, with 
board and lodging : and accordingly took up his abode with Mr. 
Griffiths, at the sign of the Dunciad, Paternoster Eow. As 
usual we trace this phase of his fortunes in his semi-fictitious 
writings ; his sudden transmutation of the pedagogue into the 
author being humorously set forth in the case of " George Prim- 
rose," in the "Yicar of Wakefield."-^ "Come," says George's 
adviser, " I see you are a lad of spirit and some learning ; what 
do you think of commencing author like me 1 You have read 
in books, no doubt, of men of genius starving at the trade : at 
present I'll show you forty very dull fellows about town that 
live by it in opulence. All honest, jog-trot men, who go on 
smoothly and dully, and write history and politics, and are 
praised : men, sir, who, had they been bred cobblers, would all 
their lives only have mended shoes, but never made them." 
" Finding " (says George) " that there was no great degree of 
gentility affixed to the character of an usher, I resolved to ac- 
cept his proposal ; and, having the highest respect for literature, 
hailed the antiqua mater of Grub-street with reverence. I 
thought it my glory to pursue a track which Dryden and Otway 
trod before me." Alas ! Dryden struggled with indigence all 
his days ; and Otway, it is said, fell a victim to famine in his 
thirty-fifth year, being strangled by a roll of bread, which he 
devoured with the voracity of a starving man. 

In Goldsmith's experience the track soon proved a thorny 
one. Griffiths was a hard business man, of shrewd, worldly 
good sense, but little refinement or cultivation. He meddled 
or rather muddled with literature, too, in a business way, alter- 
ing and modifying occasionally the writings of his contributors, 
and in this he was aided by his wife, who, according to Smollett, 

1 Chapter xx. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 53 

was " an antiquated female critic and a dabbler in the RevieivP 
Such was the literary vassalage to which Goldsmith had un- 
warily subjected himself. A diurnal drudgery was imposed on 
him, irksome to his indolent habits, and attended by circum- 
stances humiliating to his pride. He had to write daily from 
nine o'clock until two, and often throughout the day ; whether 
in the vein or not, and on subjects dictated by his task-master, 
however foreign to his taste ; in a word, he was treated as a 
mere literary hack. But this was not the worst ; it was the 
crittcal supervision of Griffiths and his wife, which grieved 
him : the " illiterate, bookselling Griffiths," as Smollett called 
them, " who presumed to revise, alter, and amend the articles 
contributed to their Revieio. Thank heaven," crowed Smol- 
lett, " the Critical Revieiv is not written under the restraint 
of a bookseller and his wife. Its principal writers are inde- 
pendent of each , other, unconnected with booksellers and un- 
awed by old women ! " 

This literary vassalage, however, did not last long. The 
bookseller became more and more exacting. He accused his 
hack writer of idleness ; of abandoning his writing-desk and 
literary workshop at an early hour of the day ; and of assuming 
a tone and manner above his situation. Goldsmith, in return, 
charged him with impertinence ; his wife, with meanness and 
parsimony in her household treatment of him, and both of 
literary meddling and marring. The engagement was broken 
off at the end of five months, by mutual consent, and without 
any violent mpture, as it will be found they afterwards had 
occasional dealings with each other. 

Though Goldsmith was now nearly thirty years of age, he 
had produced nothing to give him a decided reputation. He 
was as yet a mere writer for bread. The articles he had con- 
tributed to the Review were anonymous, and were never avowed 
by him. They have since been, for the m.ost part, ascertaineil ; 
and though thrown off hastily, often treating on subjects of 
temporary interest, and marred by the Griffiths interpolations, 
they are still characterized by his sound, easy good sense, and 
the genial graces of his style. Johnson observed that Gold- 
smith's genius floAvered late ; he should have said it flowered 
early, but was late in bringing its fruit to maturity. 



54 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



CHAPTER VIII 

Newbery, of picture-book memory — How to keep up appearances — ■ 
Miseries of authorship — A poor relation — Letter to Hodson 

Being now known in the publisliing world, Goldsmith be- 
gan to find casual employment in various quarters ; among 
others he wrote occasionally for the Literary Magazine, a 
production set on foot by Mr. John Newbery, bookseller, St. 
Paul's Churchyard, renowned in nursery literature throughout 
the latter half of the last century for his picture-books for 
children. Newbery was a worthy, intelligent, kind-hearted 
man, and a seasonable, though cautious friend to authors, re- 
lieving them with small loans when in pecuniary difficulties, 
though always taking care to be well repaid by the labor of 
their pens. Goldsmith introduces him in a humorous yet 
friendly manner in his novel of the " Vicar of Wakefield." 
" This person was no other than the philanthropic bookseller 
in St. Paul's Churchyard, who has written so many little books 
for children ; he called himself their friend ; but he was the 
friend of all mankind. He was no sooner alighted but he was 
in haste to be gone ; for he was ever on business of importance, 
and was at that time actually compiling materials for the history 
of one Mr. Thomas Trip, I immediately recollected this good- 
natured man's red-pimpled face." ^ 

Besides his literary job work. Goldsmith also resumed his 
medical practice, but with very trifling success. The scantiness 
of his purse still obliged him to live in obscure lodgings some- 
where in the vicinity of Salisbury Square, Fleet-street ; but 
his extended acquaintance and rising importance caused him 
to consult appearances. He adopted an expedient, then very 
common, and still practised in London among those who have 
to tread the narrow path between pride and poverty ; while he 
burrowed in lodgings suited to his means, he " hailed," as it is 
termed, from the Temple Exchange Coffee-house near Temple 
Bar. Here he received his medical calls ; hence he dated his 
letters, and here he passed much of his leisure hours, conversing 

' Vicar of Wakefield, Chap, xviii. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 55 

with the frequenters of the place. "Thirty pounds a year," 
said a poor Irish painter, who understood the art of shifting, 
" is enough to enable a man to live in Loudon without being 
contemptible. Ten pounds will j&nd him in clothes and linen ; 
he can live in a garret on eighteen pence a week ; hail from a 
coffee-house, where, by occasionally spending threepence, he may 
pass some hours each day in good company ; he may breakfast 
on bread and milk for a penny ; dine for sixpence ; do without 
supper ; and on clemi-shirt-day he may go abroad and pay 
visits." 

m 

Goldsmith seems to have taken a leaf from this poor devil's 
manual in respect to the coffee-house at least. Indeed, coffee- 
houses in those days were the resorts of wits and literati ; where 
the topics of the day were gossiped over, and the affairs of 
literature and the drama discussed and criticised. In this way 
he enlarged the circle of his intimacy, which now embraced 
several names of notoriety. 

Do we want a picture of Goldsmith's experience in this part 
of his career ? we have it in his observations on the life of an 
author in the " Inquiry into the -State of Polite Learning," 
published some years afterwards. 

" The author, unpatronized by the great, has naturally re- 
course to the bookseller. There cannot, perhaps, be imagined 
a combination more prejudicial to taste than this. It is the 
interest of the one to allow as little for writing, and for the 
other to write as much as possible ; accordingly, tedious com- 
pilations and periodical magazines are the result of their joint 
endeavors. In these circumstances the author bids adieu to 
fame ; writes for bread; and for that only imagination is seldom 
called in. He sits down to address the venal muse with the 
most phlegmatic apathy ; and, as we are told of the Russian, 
courts his mistress by falling asleep in her lap." 

Again. " Those who are unacquainted with the world are 
apt to fancy the man of wit as leading a very agreeable life. 
They conclude, perhaps, that he is attended with silent admira- 
tion, and dictates to the rest of mankind with all the eloquence 
of conscious superiority. Very different is his present situation. 
He is called an author, and all know that an author is a thing 
only to be laughed at. His person, not his jest, becomes the 



5Q OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

mirth of the company. At his approach the most fat, unthink- 
ingi face brightens into malicious meaning. Even aldermen 
laugh, and avenge on him the ridicule which was lavished on 
their forefathers. . . . The poet's poverty is a standing 
topic of contempt. His writing for bread is an unpardonable 
offence. Perhaps of all mankind, an author in these times is 
used most hardly. We keep him poor, and yet revile his pov- 
erty. We reproach him for living by his wit, and yet allow 
him no other means to live. His taking refuge in garrets and 
cellars has of late been violently objected to him, and that by 
men who, I have hope, are more apt to pity than insult his 
distress. Is poverty a careless fault ? No doubt he knows 
how to prefer a bottle of champagne to the nectar of the neigh- 
boring ale-house, or a venison pasty to a plate of potatoes. 
Want of delicacy is not in him, but in those who deny him the 
opportunity of making an elegant choice. Wit certainly is the 
property of those who have it, nor should we be displeased if it 
is the only property a man sometimes has. We must not 
underrate him who uses it for subsistence, and flees from the in- 
gratitude of the age, even to a bookseller for redress." ... 

" If the author be necessary among us, let us treat him with 
proper consideration as a child of the public, not as a rent- 
charge on the community. And indeed a child of the public 
he is in all respects ; for while so well able to direct others, 
how incapable is he frequently found of guiding himself. His 
simplicity exposes him to all the insidious approaches of cun- 
ning : his sensibility, to the slightest invasions of contempt. 
Though possessed of fortitude to stand unmoved the expected 
bursts of an earthquake, yet of feelings so exquisitely poignant, 
as to agonize under the slightest disappointment. Broken rest, 
tasteless meals, and causeless anxieties shorten life and render 
it unfit for active employments ; prolonged vigils and intense 
application still farther contract his span, and make his time 
glide insensibly away." 

While poor Goldsmith was thus struggling with the diffi- 
culties and discouragements which in those days beset the path 
of an author, his friends in Ireland received accounts of his 
literary success and of the distinguished acquaintances he was 
making. This was enough to put the wise heads at Lissoy and 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 57 

Ballymahon in a ferment of conjectures. With the exagger- 
ated notions of provincial relatives concerning the family great 
man in the metropolis, some of Goldsmith's poor kindred 
pictured him to themselves seated in high places, clothed in 
purple and fine linen, and hand and glove with the givers of 
gifts and dispensers of patronage. Accordingly, he was one day 
surprised at the sudden apparition, in his miserable lodging, of 
his younger brother Charles, a raw youth of twenty-one, 
endowed with a double share of the family heedlessness, and 
whctexpected to be forthwith helped into some snug by-path to 
fortune by one or other of Oliver's great friends. Charles was 
sadly disconcerted on learning that, so far from being able to pro- 
vide for others, his brother could scarcely take care of himself. 
He looked round with a rueful eye on the poet's quarters, and 
could not help expressing his surprise and disappointment at 
finding him no better off. " All in good time, my dear boy," 
replied poor Goldsmith, .with infinite good-humor; " I shall be 
richer by-and-by. Addison, let me tell you, wrote his poem of 
the * Campaign ' in a garret in the Haymarket, three stories 
high, and you see I am not come to that yet, for I have only 
got to the second story." 

Charles Goldsmith did not remain long to embarrass his 
brother in London. With the same roving disposition and 
inconsiderate temper of Oliver, he suddenly departed in an 
humble capacity to seek his fortune in the West Indies, and 
nothing was heard of him for above thirty years, when, after 
having been given up as dead by his friends, he made his re- 
appearance in England. 

Shortly after his departure Goldsmith wrote a letter to his 
brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson, Esq., of which the following is 
an extract ; it was partly intended, no doubt, to dissipate any 
further illusions concerning his fortunes which might float on 
the magnificent imagination of his friends in Ballymahon. 

" I suppose you desire to know my present situation. As 
there is nothing in it at which I should blush or which man- 
kind could censure, I see no reason for making it a secret. In 
short, by a very little practice as a physician, and a very little 
reputation as a poet, I make a shift to live. Nothing is more 
apt to introduce us to the gates of the Muses than poverty ; 



58 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

but it were well if they only left us at the door. The mischief 
is, they sometimes choose to give us their company to the 
entertainment ; and want, instead of being gentleman-usher, 
often turns master of the ceremonies. 

" Thus, upon learning I write, no doubt you imagine I 
starve ; and the name of an author naturally reminds you of 
a garret. In this particular I do not think proper to undeceive 
my friends. But, whether I eat or starve, live in a first floor 
or four pairs of stairs high, I still remember them with ardor ; 
nay, my very country comes in for a share of my affection. 
Unaccountable fondness for country, this maladie du pais, as 
the French call it ! Unaccountable that he should still have 
an affection for a place, who never, when in it, received above 
common civility ; who never brought any thing out of it except 
his brogue and his blunders. Surely my affection is equally 
ridiculous with the Scotchman's, who refused to be cured of 
the itch because it made him unco' tlipughtful of his wife and 
bonny Inverary. 

" But, now, to be serious : let me ask myself what gives me 
a wish to see Ireland again. The country is a fine one, per- 
haps 1 No. There are good company in Ireland ? No. The 
conversation there is generally made up of a smutty toast or a 
bawdy song; the vivacity supported by some humble cousin, 
who had just folly enough to earn his dinner. Then, perhaps, 
there's more wit and learning among the Irish? Oh, Lord, 
no ! There has been more money spent in the encouragement 
of the Padareen mare there one season, than given in rewards 
to learned men since the time of Usher. All their productions 
in learning amount to perhaps a translation, or a few tracts in 
divinity ; and all their productions in wit to just nothing at all. 
Why the plague, then, so fond of Ireland 1 Then, all at once, 
because you, my dear friend, and a few more wdio are excep- 
tions to the general picture, have a residence there. This it is 
that gives me all the pangs I feel in separation. I confess I 
carry this spirit sometimes to the souring the pleasures I at 
present possess. If I go to the opera, where Signora Columba 
pours out all the mazes of melody, I sit and sigh for Lissoy 
fireside, and Johnny Armstrong's 'Last Good-night' from 
Peggy Golden. If I climb Hampstead Hill, than where 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 59 

nature never exhibited a more magnificent prospect, I confess 
it fine ; but then I had rather be placed on the little mount 
before Lissoy gate, and there take in, to me, the most pleasing 
horizon in nature. 

" Before Charles came hither, my thoughts sometimes found 
refuge from severer studies among my friends in Ireland. I 
fancied strange revolutions at home ; but I find it was the 
rapidity of my own motion that gave an imaginary one to 
objects really at rest. No alterations there. Some friends, 
he 4ells me, are still lean, but very rich ; others very fat, but 
still very poor. Nay, all the news I hear of you is, that you 
sally out in visits among the neighbors, and sometimes make a 
migration from the blue bed to the brown. I could from my 
heart wish that you and she (Mrs. Hodson), and Lissoy and 
Ballymahon, and all of you, would fairly make a migration into 
Middlesex; though, upon second thoughts, this might be at- 
tended with a few inconveniences. Therefore, as the mountain 
will not come to Mohammed, why Mohammed shall go to the 
mountain ; or, to speak plain English, as you cannot con- 
veniently pay me a visit, if next summer I can contrive to 
be absent six weeks from London, I shall spend three of them 
among my friends in Ireland. But first, believe me, my design 
is purely to visit, and neither to cut a figure nor levy contribu- 
tions ; neither to excite envy nor solicit favor ; in fact, my 
circumstances are adapted to neither. I am too poor to be 
gazed at, and too rich to need assistance." 



CHAPTER IX 

Hackney authorship — Thoughts of literary suicide — Return to Peck- 
ham — Oriental projects — Literary enterprise to raise funds — 
Letter to Edward Mills; to Robert Bryanton — Death of uncle 
Contarine — Letter to cousin Jane 

Foe some time Goldsmith continued to write miscellaneously 
for reviews and other periodical publications, but without 
making any decided hit, to use a technical term. Indeed as 
yet he appeared destitute of the strong excitement of literary 
ambition, and wrote only on the spur of necessity and at the 



60 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

urgent importunity of his bookseller. His indolent and truant 
disposition, ever averse from labor and delighting in holiday, 
had to be scourged up to its task ; still it was this very truant 
disposition which threw an unconscious charm over every thing 
he wrote ; bringing with it honeyed thoughts and pictured 
images which had sprung up in his mind in the sunny hours 
of idleness : these effusions, dashed olf on compulsion in the 
exigency of the moment, were published anonymously ; so 
that they made no collective impression on the public, and 
reflected no fame on the name of their author. 

In an essay published some time subsequently in the Bee, 
Goldsmith adverts in his own humorous way, to his impatience 
at the tardiness with which his desultory and unacknowledged 
essays crept into notice. "I was once induced," says he, "to 
show my indignation against the public by discontinuing my 
efforts to please ; and was bravely resolved, like Raleigh, to 
vex them by burning my manuscripts in a passion. Upon 
reflection, however, I considered what set or body of people 
would be displeased at my rashness. The sun, after so sad 
an accident, might shine next morning as bright as usual ; 
men might laugh and sing the next day, and transact business 
as before ; and not a single creature feel any regret but myself. 
Instead of having Apollo in mourning or the Muses in a fit of 
the spleen ; instead of having the learned world apostrophizing 
at my untimely decease ; perhaps all Grub-street might laugh 
at my fate, and self-approving dignity be unable to shield me 
from ridicule." ^ 

Circumstances occurred about this time to give a new 
direction to Goldsmith's hopes and schemes. Having resumed 
for a brief period the superintendence of the Peckham school 
during a fit of illness of Dr. Milner, that gentleman, in requital 
for his timely services, promised to use his influence with a 
friend, an East India director, to procure him a medical 
appointment in India. 

There was every reason to believe that the influence of Dr. 
Milner would be effectual; but how was Goldsmith to find 
the ways and means of fitting himself out for a voyage to the 
Indies 1 In this emergency he was driven to a more extended 

1 The Bee, No. iv. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 61 

exercise of the pen than he had yet attempted. His skirmish- 
ing among books as a reviewer, and his disputations ramble 
among the schools and universities and literati of the Con- 
tinent, had filled his mind with facts and observations which 
he now set about digesting into a treatise of some magnitude, 
to be entitled " An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite 
Learning in Europe." As the work grew on his hands his 
sanguine temper ran ahead of his labors. Feeling secure of 
success in England, he was anxious to forestall the piracy of 
the-Irish press ; for as yet, the union not having taken place, 
the English law of copyright did not extend to the other side 
of the Irish channel. He wrote, therefore, to his friends in 
Ireland, urging them to circulate his proposals for his contem- 
plated work, and obtain subscriptions payable in advance ; the 
money to be transmitted to a Mr. Bradley, an eminent book- 
seller in Dublin, who would give a receipt for it and be 
accountable for the delivery of the books. The letters written 
by him on this occasion are worthy of copious citation as being 
full of character and interest. One was to his relative and 
college intimate, Edward Mills, who had studied for the bar, 
but was now living at ease on his estate at Roscommon. 
" You have quitted," writes Goldsmith, " the plan of life 
which you once intended to pursue, and given up ambition for 
domestic tranquillity. I cannot avoid feeling some regret that 
one of my few friends has declined a pursuit in which he had 
every reason to expect success. I have often let my fancy 
loose when you were the subject, and have imagined you grac- 
ing the bench, or thundering at the bar : while I have taken 
no small pride to myself, and whispered to all that I could 
come near, that this was my cousin. Instead of this, it seems, 
you are merely contented to be a happy man ; to be esteemed 
by your acquaintances ; to cultivate your paternal acres ; to 
take unmolested a nap under one of your own hawthorns, or 
in Mrs. Mills's bedchamber, which, even a poet must confess, is 
rather the more comfortable place of the two. But, however 
your rasokitions may be altered with regard to your situation 
in life, I persuade myself they are unalterable with respect to 
your friends in it. I cannot think the world has taken such 
entire possession of that heart (once so susceptible of friend- 



62 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

ship) as not to have left a corner there for a friend or two, but 
I flatter myself that even I have a place among the number. 
This I have a claim to from the similitude of our dispositions ; 
or setting that aside, I can demand it as a right by the most 
equitable law of nature ; I mean that of retaliation ; for in- 
deed you have more than your share in mine. I am a man of 
few professions ; and yet at this very instant I cannot avoid 
the painful apprehension that my present professions (which 
speak not half my feelings) should be considered only as a 
pretext to cover a request, as I have a request to make. No, 
my dear Ned, I know you are too generous to think so, and 
you know me too proud to stoop to unnecessary insincerity — 
I have a request, it is true, to make ; but as I know to whom 
I am a petitioner, I make it without difl&dence or confusion. 
It is in short this, I am going to publish a book in London," 
&c. The- residue of the letter specifies the nature of the 
request, which was merely to aid in circulating his proposals 
and obtaining subscriptions. The letter of the poor author, 
however, was unattended to and unacknowledged by the pros- 
perous Mr. Mills, of Roscommon, though in after years he was 
proud to claim relationship to Dr. Goldsmith, when he had 
risen to celebrity. 

Another of Goldsmith's letters was to Robert Bryanton, 
with whom he had long ceased to be in correspondence. " I 
believe," writes he, " that they who are drunk, or out of their 
wits, fancy every body else in the same condition. Mine is a 
friendship that neither distance nor time can efface, which is 
probably the reason that, for the soul of me, I can't avoid 
thinking yours of the same complexion ; and yet I have many 
reasons for being of a contrary opinion, else why, in so long an 
absence, was I never made a partner in your concerns'? To 
hear of your success would have given me the utmost pleasure ; 
and a communication of your very disappointments would 
divide the uneasiness I too frequently feel for my own. Indeed, 
my dear Bob, you don't conceive how unkindly you have treated 
one whose circumstances afford him few prospects of pleasure, 
except those reflected from the happiness of his friends. How- 
ever, since you have not let me hear from you, I have in some 
measure disappointed your neglect by frequently thinking of 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 63 

you. Every day or so I remember the calm anecdotes of your 
life, from the fireside to the easy chair ; recall the various 
adventures that first cemented our friendship, — the school, 
the college, or the tavern ; preside in fancy over your cards ; 
and am displeased at your bad play when the rubber goes 
against you, though not with all that agony of soul as when I 
was once your partner. Is it not strange that two of such like 
affections should be so much separated, and so differently em- 
ployed as we are 1 You seem placed at the centre of fortune's 
wheef, and, let it revolve ever so fast, are insensible of the mo- 
tion. I seem to have been tied to the circumference, and 
whirled disagreeably round, as if on a whirligig." 

He then runs into a whimsical and extravagant tirade about 
his future prospects. The wonderful career of fame and fortune 
that awaits him, and after indulging in all kinds of humorous 
gasconades, concludes: "Let me, then, stop my fancy to take 
a view of my future self, — and, as the boys say, light down 
to see myself on horseback. Well, now that I am down, where 
the d — 1 is I ? Oh gods ! gods ! here in a garret, writing for 
bread, and expecting to be dunned for a milk score ! " 

He would, on this occasion, have doubtless written to his 
uncle Contarine, but that generous friend was sunk into a help- 
less hopeless state from which death soon released him. 

Cut off thus from the kind co-operation of his uncle, he 
addresses a letter to his daughter Jane, the companion of his 
school-boy and happy days, now the wife of Mr. Lawder. The 
object was to secure her interest with her husband in promoting 
the circulation of his proposals. The letter is full of character. 

"If you should ask," he begins, "why, in an interval of so 
many years, you never heard from me, permit me, madam, to 
ask the same question. I haver the best excuse in recrimination. 
I wrote to Kilmore from Leyden in Holland, from Louvain in 
Flanders, and Rouen in France, but received no answer. To 
what could I attribute this silence but to displeasure or forget- 
fulness ? Whether I was right in my conjecture I do not pre- 
tend to determine ; but this I must ingenuously own, that I 
have a thousand times in my turn endeavored to forget them, 
whom I could not but look upon as forgetting me. I have 
attempted to blot their names from my memory, and, I confess 



64 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

it, spent whole days in efforts to tear their image from my 
heart. Oould I have succeeded, you had not now been troubled 
with this renewal of a discontinued correspondence ; but, as 
every effort the restless make to procure sleep serves but to 
keep them waking, all my attempts contributed to impress 
what I would forget deeper on my imagination. But this sub- 
ject I would willingly turn from, and yet, ' for the soul of me,' 
I can't till I have said all. I was, madam, when I discontinued 
writing to Kilmore, in such circumstances, that all my endeavors 
to continue your regards might be attributed to wrong motives. 
My letters might be looked upon as the petitions of a beggar, 
and not the offerings of a friend ; while all my professions, 
instead of being considered as the result of disinterested esteem, 
might be ascribed to venal insincerity. I believe, indeed, you 
had too much generosity to place them in such a light, but I 
could not bear even the shadow of such a suspicion. The most 
delicate friendships are always most sensible of the slightest 
invasion, and the strongest jealousy is ever attendant on the 
warmest regard. I could not — I own I could not — continue 
a correspondence in which every acknowledgment for past favors 
might be considered as an indirect request for future ones ; and 
where it might be thought I gave my heart from a motive of 
gratitude alone, when I was conscious of having bestowed it on 
much more disinterested principles. It is true, this conduct 
might have been simple enough ; but yourself must confess it 
was in character. Those who know me at all know that I 
have always been actuated by different principles from the rest 
of mankind : and while none regarded the interest of his friend 
more, no man on earth regarded his own less. I have often 
affected bluntness to avoid the imputation of flattery ; have 
frequently seemed to overlook those merits too obvious to 
escape notice, and pretended disregard to those instances of 
good nature and good sense, which I could not fail tacitly to 
applaud ; and all this lest I should be ranked among the grin- 
ning tribe, who say ' very true ' to all that is said ; who fill a 
vacant chair at a tea-table ; whose narrow souls never moved 
in a wider circle than the circumference of a guinea ; and who 
had rather be reckoning the money in your pocket than the 
virtue in your breast. All this, I say, I have done, and a 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 65 

thousand other very silly, though very disinterested, things in 
my time ; and for all which no soul cares a farthing about me. 
... Is it to be wondered that he should once in his life for- 
get you, who has been all his life forgetting himself? However, 
it is probable you may one of these days see me turned into a 
perfect hunks, and as dark and intricate as a mouse-hole. I 
have already given my landlady orders for an entire reform in 
the state of my finances. I declaim against hot suppers, drink 
less sugar in my tea, and check my grate with brickbats. In- 
stead of hanging my room with pictures, I intend to adorn it 
with maxims of frugality. Those will make pretty furniture 
enough, and won't be a bit too expensive ; for I will draw them 
all out with my own hands, and my landlady's daughter shall 
frame them with the parings of my black waistcoat. Each 
maxim is to be inscribed on a sheet of clean paper, and wrote 
with my best pen ; of which the following will serve as a speci- 
men. Look sharp : Mind the main chance : Money is money 
now : If you have a thousand pounds you can put your hands 
hy your sides, and say you are ivorth a thousand pounds every 
day of the year : Take a farthing from a hundred and it will 
he a hundred no longer. Thus, which way soever I turn my 
eyes, they are sure to meet one of those friendly monitors ; and 
as we are told of an actor who hung his room round with 
looking-glass to correct the defects of his person, my apartment 
shall be furnished in a peculiar manner, to correct the errors of 
my mind. Faith ! madam, I heartily wish to be rich, if it 
were only for this reason, to say without a blush how much I 
esteem you. But, alas ! I have many a fatigue to encounter 
before that happy time comes, when your poor old simple friend 
may again give a loose to the luxuriance of his nature ; sitting 
by Kilmore fireside, recount the various adventures of a hard- 
fought life ; laugh over the follies of the day ; join his flute to 
your harpsichord ; and forget that ever he starved in those 
streets where Butler and Otway starved before him. And now 
I mention those great names — my Uncle ! he is no more that 
soul of fire as when I once knew him. Newton and Swift grew 
dim with age as well as he. But what shall I say 1 His mind 
was too active an inhabitant not to disorder the feeble mansion 
of its abode : for the richest jewels soonest wear their settings. 



66 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Yet who but the fool would lament his condition ! He now 
forgets the calamities of life. Perhaps indulgent Heaven has 
given him a foretaste of that tranquillity here, which he so well 
deserves hereafter. But I must come to business ; for business, 
as one of my maxims tells me, must be minded or lost. I am 
going to publish in London a book entitled ' The Present State 
of Taste and Literature in Europe.' TJie booksellers in Ireland 
republish every performance there without making the author 
any consideration. I would, in this respect, disappoint their 
avarice, and have all the profits of ray labor to myself I 
must, therefore, request Mr. Lawder to circulate among his 
friends and acquaintances a hundred of my proposals, which I 
have given the bookseller, Mr. Bradley, in Dame-street, direc- 
tions to send to him. If, in pursuance of such circulation, he 
should receive any subscriptions, I entreat, when collected, they 
may be sent to Mr. Bradley, as aforesaid, who will give a 
receipt, and be accountable for the work, or a return of the 
subscription. If this request (which, if it be comphed with, 
will in some measure be an encouragement to a man of learn- 
ing) should be disagreeable or troublesome, I would not press 
it ; for I would be the last man on earth to have my labors go 
a-begging; but if I know Mr. Lawder (and sure I ought to 
know him), he will accept the employment with pleasure. All 
I can say — if he writes a book, I will get him two hundred 
subscribers, and those of the best wits in Europe. Whether 
this request is complied with or not, I shall not be uneasy ; but 
there is one petition I must make to him and to you, which I 
solicit with the warmest ardor, and in which I cannot bear 
a refusal. I mean, dear madam, that I may be allowed to 
subscribe myself, your ever affectionate and obliged kinsman, 
Oliver Goldsmith. Now see how I blot and blunder, when 
I am asking a favor." ^ 



OLIVEK GOLDSMITH 67 



CHAPTER X 

Oriental appointment and disappointment — Examination at the Col- 
lege of Surgeons — How to procure a suit of clothes — Fresh dis- 
appointment — A tale of distress — The suit of clothes in pawn — 
Punishment for doing an act of charity — Gayeties of Green Arbor 
Court — Letter to his brother — Life of Voltaire — Scroggin, an 
attempt at mock-heroic poetry 

While Goldsmith was yet laboring at his treatise, the 
promise made him by Dr. Milnerwas carried into effect, and 
he was actually appointed physician and surgeon to one of the 
factories on the coast of Coromandel. His imagination was 
immediately on fire with visions of Oriental wealth and mag- 
nificence. It is true the salary did not exceed one hundred 
pounds, but then, as appointed physician, he would have the 
exclusive practice of the place, amounting to one thousand 
pounds per annum ; with advantages to be derived from trade 
and from the high interest of money — twenty per cent. ; in 
a word, for once in his life, the road to fortune lay broad and 
straight before him. 

Hitherto, in his correspondence with his friends, he had said 
nothing of his India scheme ; but now he imparted to them his 
brilliant prospects, urging the importance of their circulating 
his proposals and obtaining him subscriptions and advances on 
his forthcoming work, to furnish funds for his outfit. 

In the meantime he had to task that poor drudge, his Muse, 
for present exigencies. Ten pounds were demanded for his ap- 
pointment-warrant. Other expenses pressed hard upon him. 
Fortunately, though as yet unknown to fame, his literary capa- 
bility was known to " the trade," and the coinage of his brain 
passed current in Grub-street. Archibald Hamilton, proprietor 
of the Critical Review, the rival to that of Griffiths, readily 
made him a small advance on receiving three articles for his 
periodical. His purse thus slenderly replenished. Goldsmith 
paid for his warrant ; wiped off the score of his milkmaid ; 
abandoned his garret, and moved into a shabby first floor in 
a forlorn court near the Old Bailey; there to await the time 
for his migration to the magnificent coast of Coromandel. 

Alas ! poor Goldsmith ! ever doomed to disappointment. 



68 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Early in the gloomy month of November, that month of fog 
and despondency in Loudon, he learnt the shipwreck of his 
hope. The great Coromandel enterprise fell through ; or rather 
the post promised to him was transferred to some other candi- 
date. The cause of this disappointment it is now impossible 
to ascertain. The death of his quasi patron. Dr. Milner, which 
happened about this time, may have had some effect in pro- 
ducing it ; or there may have been some heedlessness and 
blundering on his own part ; or some obstacle arising from his 
insuperable indigence ; whatever may have been the cause, he 
never mentioned it, which gives some ground to surmise that 
he himself was to blame. His friends learnt with surprise 
that he had suddenly relinquished his appointment to India, 
about which he had raised such sanguine expectations : some 
accused him of fickleness and caprice; others supposed him 
unwilling to tear himself from the growing fascinations of the 
literary society in London. 

In the meantime cut down in his hopes, and humiliated in 
his pride by the failure of his Coromandel scheme, he sought, 
without consulting his friends, to be examined at the College 
of Physicians for the humble situation of hospital mate. Even 
here poverty stood in his way. It was necessary to appear in 
a decent garb before the examining committee ; but how was 
he to do so ? He was literally out at elbows as well as out of 
cash. Here again the Muse, so often jilted and neglected by 
him, came to his aid. In consideration of four articles fur- 
nished to the Monthly Review, G-riffiths, his old task-master, 
was to become his security to the tailor for a suit of clothes. 
Goldsmith said he wanted them but for a single occasion, on 
which depended his appointment to a situation in the army ; 
as soon as that temporary purpose was served they would either 
be returned or paid for. The books to be reviewed were ac- 
cordingly lent to him ; the Muse was again set to her com- 
pulsory drudgery ; the articles were scribbled off and sent to 
the bookseller, and the clothes came in due time from the tailor. 

From the records of the College of Surgeons, it appears that 
Goldsmith underwent his examination at Surgeons' Hall, on the 
21st of December, 1758. Either from a confusion of mind in- 
cident to sensitive and imaginative persons on such occasions, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 69 

or from a real want of surgical science, which last is extremely 
probable, he failed in his examination, and was rejected as 
unqualified. The effect of such a rejection was to disqualify 
him for every branch of public service, though he might have 
claimed a re-examination, after the interval of a few months 
devoted to further study. Such a re-examination he never 
attempted, nor did he ever communicate his discomfiture to 
any of his friends. 

On Christmas Day, but four days after his rejection by the 
Colfege of Surgeons, while he was suffering under the mortifi- 
cation of defeat and disappointment, and hard pressed for means 
of subsistence, he was surprised by the entrance into his room 
of the poor woman of whom he hired his wretched apartment, 
and to whom he owed some small arrears of rent. She had a 
piteous tale of distress, and was clamorous in her afflictions. 
Her husband had been arrested in the night for debt, and 
thrown into prison. This was too much for the quick feelings 
of Goldsmith ; he was ready at any time to help the distressed, 
but in this instance he was himself in some measure a cause 
of the distress. What was to be done ? He had no money it 
is true ; but there hung the new suit of clothes in which he 
had stood his unlucky examination at Surgeons' Hall. With- 
out giving himself time for reflection, he sent it off to the 
pawnbroker's, and raised thereon a sufficient sum to pay off 
his own debt, and to release his landlord from prison. 

Under the same pressure of penury and despondency, he 
borrowed from a neighbor a pittance to relieve his immediate 
wants, leaving as a security the books which he had recently 
reviewed. In the midst of these straits and harassments, he 
received a letter from Griffiths, demanding, in peremptory terms, 
the return of the clothes and books, or immediate payment for 
the same. It appears that he had discovered the identical suit 
at the pawnbroker's. The reply of Goldsmith is not known ; it 
was out of his power to furnish either the clothes or the money ; 
but he probably offered once more to make the Muse stand his 
bail. His reply only increased the ire of the wealthy man of 
trade, and drew from him another letter still more harsh than 
the first ; using the epithets of knave and sharper, and contain- 
ing threats of prosecution and a prison. 



70 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

The following letter from poor Goldsmith gives the most 
touching picture of an inconsiderate but sensitive man, har- 
assed by care, stung by humiliations, and driven almost to 
despondency. 

"Sir, — I know of no misery but a jail to which my own 
imprudences and your letter seem to point. I have seen it in- 
evitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens ! request it 
as a favor — as a favor that may prevent something more fa- 
tal. I have been some years struggling with a wretched being 
— with all that contempt that indigence brings with it — with 
all those passions which make contempt insupportable. What^ 
then, has a jail that is formidable? I shall at least have the 
society of wretches, and such is to me true society. I tell you, 
again and again, that I am now neither able nor willing to pay 
you a farthing, but I will be punctual to any appointment you 
or the tailor shall make ; thus far, at least, I do not act the 
sharper, since, unable to pay my own debts one way, I would 
generally give some security another. No, sir; had I been a 
sharper — had I been possessed of less good-nature and native 
generosity, I might surely now have been in better circum- 
stances. 

" I am guilty, I own, of meannesses which poverty unavoid- 
ably brings with it : my reflections are filled with repentance 
for my imprudence, but not with any remorse for being a vil- 
lain : that may be a character you unjustly charge me with. 
Your books, I can assure you, are neither pawned nor sold, but 
in the custody of a friend, from whom my necessities obhged 
me to borrow some money : whatever becomes of my person, 
you shall have them in a month. It is very possible both the 
reports you have heard and your own suggestions may have 
brought you false information with respect to my character ; it 
is very possible that the man whom you now regard with de- 
testation may inwardly burn with grateful resentment. It is 
very possible that, upon a second perusal of the letter I sent 
you, you may see the workings of a mind strongly agitated with 
gratitude and jealousy. If such circumstances should appear, 
at least spare invective till my book with Mr. Dodsley shall be 
published, and then, perhaps, you may see the bright side of a 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 71 

mind, when my professions shall not appear the dictates of 
necessity, but of choice. 

" You seem to think Dr. Milner knew me not. Perhaps so ; 
but he was a man I shall ever honor ; but I have friendships 
only with the dead ! I ask pardon for taking up so much time ; 
nor shall I add to it by any other professions than that I am, 
sir, your humble servant, 

" Oliver Goldsmith. 

'i'P.S. — I shall expect impatiently the result of your reso- 
lutions." 

The dispute between the poet and the publisher was after- 
ward imperfectly adjusted, and it would appear that the clothes 
were paid for by a short compilation advertised by Griffiths in 
the course of the following month ; but the parties were never 
really friends afterward, and the writings of Goldsmith were 
harshly and unjustly treated in the Monthly Review. 

We have given the preceding anecdote in detail, as furnish- 
ing one of the many instances in which Goldsmith's prompt and 
benevolent impulses outran all prudent forecast, and involved 
him in difficulties and disgraces, which a more selfish man 
would have avoided. The pawning of the clothes, charged 
upon him as a crime by the grinding bookseller, and apparently 
admitted by him as one of " the meannesses which poverty un- 
avoidably brings with it," resulted, as we have shown, from a 
tenderness of heart and generosity of hand, in which another 
man would have gloried ; but these were such natural elements 
with him, that he was unconscious of their merit. It is a pity 
that wealth does not oftener bring such "meannesses" in its 
train. 

And now let us be indulged in a few particulars about these 
lodgings in which Goldsmith was guilty of this thoughtless act 
of benevolence. They were in a very shabby house. No. 12 
Green Arbor Court, between the Old Bailey and Fleet Market. 
An old woman was still living in 1820 who was a relative of 
the identical landlady whom Goldsmith relieved by the money 
received from the pawnbroker. She was a child about seven 
years of age at the time that the poet rented his apartment of 



72 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

her relative, and used frequently to be at the house in Green 
Arbor Court. She was drawn there, in a great measure, by 
the good-humored kindness of Goldsmith, who was always ex- 
ceedingly fond of the society of children. He used to assemble 
those of the family in his room, give them cakes and sweet- 
meats, and set them dancing to the sound of his flute. He was 
very friendly to those around him, and cultivated a kind of 
intimacy with a watchmaker in the Court, who possessed much 
native wit and humor. He passed most of the day, however, 
in his room, and only went out in the evenings. His days 
were no doubt devoted to the drudgery of the pen, and it would 
appear that he occasionally found the booksellers urgent task- 
masters. On one occasion a visitor was shown up to his room, 
and immediately their voices were heard in high altercation, and 
the key was turned within the lock. The landlady, at first, 
was disposed to go to the assistance of her lodger ; but a calm 
succeeding, she forbore to interfere. 

Late in the evening the door was unlocked ; a supper ordered 
by the visitor from a neighboring tavern, and Goldsmith and 
his intrusive guest finished the evening in great good-humor. 
It was probably his old task- master Griffiths, whose press 
might have been waiting, and who found no other mode of get- 
ting a stipulated task from Goldsmith than by locking him in, 
and staying by him until it was finished. 

But we have a more particular account of these lodgings in 
Green Arbor Court from the Eev. Thomas Percy, afterward 
Bishop of Dromore, and celebrated for his relics of ancient 
poetry, his beautiful ballads, and other works. During an 
occasional visit to London, he was introduced to Goldsmith by 
Grainger, and ever after continued one of his most steadfast 
and valued friends. The following is his description of the 
poet's squalid apartment : "I called on Goldsmith at his lodg- 
ings in March, 1759, and found him writing his 'Inquiry,' in a 
miserable, dirty-looking room, in which there was but one chair ; 
and when, from civility, he resigned it to me, he himself was 
obliged to sit in the window. While we were conversing 
together some one tapped gently at the door, and, being desired 
to come in, a poor, ragged little girl, of a very becoming de- 
meanor, entered the room, and, dropping a courtesy, said, ' My 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 73 

mamma sends her compliments, and begs the favor of you to 
lend her a chamber-pot full of coals.' " 

We are reminded in this anecdote of Goldsmith's picture of 
the lodgings of Beau Tibbs, and of the peep into the secrets of a 
make-shift establishment given to a visitor by the blundering 
old Scotchwoman. 

" By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would 
permit us to ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously 
pleased to call the first floor down the chimney ; and, knocking 
at t^e door, a voice from within demanded ' who's there 1 ' My 
conductor answered that it was him. But this not satisfying 
the querist, the voice again repeated the demand, to which he 
answered louder than before ; and now the door was opened 
by an old woman with cautious reluctance. 

" When we got in he welcomed me to his house with great 
ceremony; and, turning to the old woman, asked where was 
her lady. 'Good troth,' replied she, in a peculiar dialect, 'she's 
washing your twa shirts at the next door, because they have 
taken an oath against lending the tub any longer.' ' My two 
shirts,' cried he, in a tone that faltered with confusion; 'what 
does the idiot mean V 'I ken what I mean weel enough,' 
replied the other ; ' she's washing your twa shirts at the next 
door, because — ' ' Fire and fury ! no more of thy stupid ex- 
planations,' cried he ; ' go and inform her we have company. 
Were that Scotch hag to be for ever in my family, she would 
never learn politeness, nor forget that absurd poisonous accent 
of hers, or testify the smallest specimen of breeding or high 
life ; and yet it is very surprising too, as I had her from a 
Parliament man, a friend of mine from the Highlands, one of 
the politest men in the world ; but that's a secret.' " ^ 

Let us linger a little in Green Arbor Court, a place conse- 
crated by the genius and the poverty of Goldsmith, but recently 
obliterated in the course of modern improvements. The writer of 
this memoir visited it not many years since on a literary pilgrim- 
age, and may be excused for repeating a description of it which 
he has heretofore inserted in another publication. "It then ex- 
isted in its pristine state, and was a small square of tall and 
miserable houses, the very intestines of which seemed turned 

1 Citizen of the World, Letter Iv. 



74 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

inside out, to judge from the old garments and frippery that 
fluttered from every window. It appeared to be a region of 
washerwomen, and lines were stretched about the little square, 
on which clothes were dangling to dry. 

" Just as we entered the square, a scuffle took place between 
two viragoes about a disputed right to a washtub, and immedi- 
ately the whole community was in a hubbub. Heads in mob 
caps popped out of every window, and such a clamor of tongues 
ensued that I was fain to stop my ears. Every amazon took 
part with one or other of the disputants, and brandished 
her arms, dripping with soapsuds, and fired away from her 
window as from the embrasure of a fortress ; while the screams 
of children nestled and cradled in every procreant chamber of 
this hive, waking with the noise, set up their shrill pipes to 
swell the general concert." ^ 

While in these forlorn quarters, suffering under extreme 
depression of spirits, caused by his failure at Surgeons' Hall, 
the disappointment of his hopes, and his harsh collisions with 
Griffiths, Goldsmith wrote the following letter to his brother 
Henry, some parts of which are most touchingly mournful. 

" Dear Sir, 

" Your punctuality in answering a man whose trade is 
writing, is more than I had reason to expect ; and yet you 
see me generally fill a whole sheet, which is all the recompense 
I can make for being so frequently troublesome. The behavior 
of Mr. Mills and Mr. Lawder is a little extraordinary. How- 
ever, their answering neither you nor me is a sufficient indica- 
tion of their disliking the employment which I assigned them. 
As their conduct is different from what I had expected, so I 
have made an alteration in mine. I shall, the beginning of 
next month, send over two hundred and fifty books, ^ which 
are all that I fancy can be well sold among you, and I would 
have you make some distinction in the persons who have sub- 
scribed. The money, which will amount to sixty pounds, may 
be left with Mr. Bradley as soon as possible. I am not certain 
but I shall quickly have occasion for it. 

1 Tales of a Traveller. 

2 The Inquiry into Polite Literature. His previous remarks apply 
to the subscription. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 75 

"I have met with no disappointment with respect to my 
East India voyage, nor are my resolutions altered ; though, at 
the same time, I must confess, it gives me some pain to think 
I am almost beginning the world at the age of thirty-one. 
Though I never had a day's sickness since I saw you, yet I 
am not that strong, active man you once knew me. You 
scarcely can conceive how much eight years of disappointment, 
anguish, and study have worn me down. If I remember right 
you are seven or eight years older than me, yet I dare venture 
to ^j, that, if a stranger saw us both, he would pay me the 
honors of seniority. Imagine to yourself a pale, melancholy 
visage, with two great wrinkles between the eyebrows, with an 
eye disgustingly severe, and a big wig ; and you may have a 
perfect picture of my present appearance. On the other hand, 
I conceive you as perfectly sleek and healthy, passing many a 
happy day among your own children, or those who knew you 
a child. 

" Since I knew what it was to be a man, this is a pleasure 
I have not known. I have passed my days among a parcel of 
cool, designing beings, and have contracted all their suspicious 
manner in my own behavior. I should actually be as unfit for 
the society of my friends at home, as I detest that which I am 
obliged to partake of here. I can now neither partake of the 
pleasure of a revel, nor contribute to raise its jolhty. I can 
neither laugh nor drink ; have contracted a hesitating, disagree- 
able manner of speaking, and a visage that looks ill-nature 
itself; in short, I have thought myself into a settled melan- 
choly, and an utter disgust of all that life brings with it. 
Whence this romantic turn that all our family are possessed 
with ? Whence this love for every place and every country 
but that in which we reside — for every occupation but our 
own? this desire of fortune, and yet this eagerness to dis- 
sipate? I perceive, my dear sir, that I am at intervals fc 
indulging this splenetic manner, and following my own taste, 
regardless of yours. 

" The reasons you have given me for breeding up your son a 
scholar are judicious and convincing; I should, however, be 
glad to know for what particular profession he is designed. If 
he be assiduous and divested of strong passions (for passions in 



76 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

youth always lead to pleasure), he may do very well in your 
college ; for it must be owned that the industrious poor have 
good encouragement there, perhaps better than in any other in 
Europe. But if he has ambition, strong passions, and an 
exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not send him there, unless 
you have no other trade for him but your own. It is impos- 
sible to conceive how much may be done by proper education 
at home. A boy, for instance, who understands perfectly well 
Latin, French, arithmetic, and the principles of the civil law, 
and can write a fine hand, has an education that may qualify 
him for any undertaking ; and these parts of learning should 
be carefully inculcated, let him be designed for whatever calling 
he will. 

" Above all things, let him never touch a romance or novel : 
these paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and 
describe happiness that man never tastes. How delusive, how 
destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss ! They 
teach the youthful mind to sigh after beauty and happiness 
that never existed ; to despise the little good which fortune 
has mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave ; 
and, in general, take the word of a man who has seen the 
world, and who has studied human nature more by experience 
than precept ; take my word for it, I say, that books teach us 
very little of the world. The greatest merit in a state of 
poverty would only serve to make the possessor ridiculous — 
may distress, but cannot relieve him. Frugality, and even 
avarice, in the lower orders of mankind, are true ambition. 
These afford the only ladder for the poor to rise to preferment. 
Teach then, my dear sir, to your son, thrift and economy. 
Let his poor wandering uncle's example be placed before his 
eyes. I had learned from books to be disinterested and gener- 
ous, before I was taught from experience the necessity of being 
prudent. I had contracted the habits and notions of a phi- 
losopher, while I was exposing myself to the approaches of 
insidious cunning ; and often by being, even with my narrow 
finances, charitable to excess, I forgot the rules of justice, and 
placed myself in the very situation of the wretch who thanked 
me for my bounty. When I am in the remotest part of the 
world, tell him this, and perhaps he may improve from my 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 77 

example. But I find myself again falling into my gloomy 
habits of thinking. 

" My mother, I am informed, is almost blind ; even though 
I had the utmost inclination to return home, under such cir- 
cumstances I could not, for to behold her in distress without 
a capacity of relieving her from it, would add much to my 
splenetic habit. Your last letter was much too short; it 
should have answered some queries I had made in my former. 
Just sit down as I do, and write forward until you have filled 
all your paper. It requires no thought, at least from the ease 
with which my own sentiments rise when they are addressed to 
you. For, believe me^ my head has no share in all I write ; 
my heart dictates the whole. Pray give my love to Bob 
Bryanton, and entreat him from me not to drink. My dear 
sir, give me some account about poor Jenny.-^ Yet her hus- 
band loves her : if so, she cannot be unhappy. 

"I know not whether I should tell you — yet why should 
1 conceal these trifles, or, indeed, any thing from you ? There 
is a book of mine will be published in a few days : the life of 
a very extraordinary man ; no less than the great Voltaire. 
You know already by the title that it is no more than a 
catchpenny. However, I spent but four weeks on the whole 
performance, for which I received twenty pounds. When 
published, I shall take some method of conveying it to you, 
unless you may think it dear of the postage, which may 
amount to four or five shillings. However, I fear you will not 
find an equivalent of amusement. 

" Your last letter, I repeat it, was too short ; you should 
have given me your opinion of the design of the heroi-comical 
poem which I sent you. You remember I intended to intro- 
duce the hero of the poem as lying in a paltry ale house. You 
may take the following specimen of the manner, which I flatter 
myself is quite original. The room in which he lies may be 
described somewhat in this way : 

" ' The window, patched with paper, lent a ray 
That feebly sliow'd the state in which he lay ; 
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread, 

1 His sister, Mrs. Johnston ; her marriage, like that of Mrs. Hodson, 
was private, but in pecuniary matters much less fortunate. 



78 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

The humid wall with paltry pictures spread ; 

The game of goose was there exposed to view, 

And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew ; 

The Seasons, framed with listing, found a place, 

And Prussia's monarch show'd his lamp-black face. 

The morn was cold : he views with keen desire 

A rusty grate unconscious of a fire ; 

An unpaid reckoning on the frieze was scored, 

And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board.' 

"And now imagine, after his soliloquy, the landlord to make 
his appearance in order to dun him for the reckoning : 

" ' Not with that face, so servile and so gay, 
That welcomes every stranger that can pay : 
With sulky eye he smoked the patient man, 
Then pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began,' &c.i 

" All this is taken, you see, from nature. It is a good 
remark of Montaigne's, that the wisest men often have friends 
with whom they do not care how much they play the fool. 
Take my present follies as instances of my regard. Poetry is 
a much easier and more agreeable species of composition than 
prose ; and, could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant 
employment to be a poet. I am resolved to leave no space, 
though I should fill it up only by telling you, what you very 
well know already, I mean that I am your most affectionate 
friend and brother, 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 

The " Life of Voltaire," alluded to in the latter part of 
the preceding letter, was the literary job undertaken to satisfy 
the demands of Griffiths. It was to have preceded a trans- 
lation of the " Henriade," by Ned Purdon, Goldsmith's old 
schoolmate, now a Grub-street writer, who starved rather than 
lived by the exercise of his pen, and often tasked Goldsmith's 
scanty means to relieve his hunger. His miserable career was 
summed up by our poet in the following lines written some 
years after the time we are treating of, on hearing that he had 
suddenly dropped dead in Smithfield : 

1 The projected poem, of which the above were specimens, appears 
never to have been completed. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 79 

" Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed, 
Who long was a bookseller's hack ; 
He led such a damnable life in this world, 
I don't think he'll wish to come back." 

The memoir and translation, though advertised to form a 
volume, were not published together ; but appeared separately 
in a magazine. 

As to the heroi-comical poem, also, cited in the foregoing 
letter, it appears to have perished in embryo. Had it been 
brought to maturity we should have had further traits of 
autobiography ; the room already described was probably his 
own squalid quarters in Green Arbor Court ; and in a subse- 
quent morsel of the poem we have the poet himself, under the 
euphonius name of Scroggin : 

" Where the Red Lion peering o'er the way, 
Invites each passing stranger that can pay ; 
Where Calvert's butt and Parson's black champaigne 
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane : 
There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, 
The Mouse found Scroggin stretch'd beneath a rug ; 
A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay, 
A cap by night, a stocking all the day ! " 

It is to be regretted that this poetical conception was not 
carried out : like the author's other writings, it might have 
abounded with pictures of life and touches of nature drawn 
from his own observation and experience, and mellowed by his 
own humane and tolerant spirit ; and might have been a 
worthy companion or rather contrast to his " Traveller " and 
" Deserted Village," and have remained in the language a first- 
rate specimen of the mock-heroic. 



CHAPTER XI 

Publication of The Inquiry — Attacked by Griffiths' Reviev) — Kenrick 
the literary Ishmaelite — Periodical literature — Goldsmith's essays 
— Garrick as a manager — Smollett and his schemes — Change of 
lodgings — The Robin Hood club 

Towards the end of March, 1759, the treatise on which 
Goldsmith had laid so much stress, on which he at one time 



80 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

had calculated to defray the expenses of his outfit to India, 
and to which he had adverted in his correspondence with 
Grijtfiths, made its appearance. It was published by the 
Dodsleys, and entitled " An Inquiry into the Present State of 
Polite Learning in Europe." 

In the present day, when the whole field of contemporary 
literature is so widely surveyed and amply discussed, and when 
the current productions of every country are constantly collated 
and ably criticised, a treatise like that of Goldsmith would be 
considered as extremely limited and unsatisfactory ; but at 
that time it possessed novelty in its views and wideness in its 
scope, and being indued with the peculiar charm of style in- 
separable from the author, it commanded public attention and 
a profitable sale. As it was the most important production 
that had yet come from Goldsmith's pen, he was anxious to 
have the credit of it ; yet it appeared without his name on 
the title-page. The authorship, however, was well known 
throughout the world of letters, and the author had now 
grown into sufficient literary importance to become an object 
of hostility to the underlings of the press. One of the most 
virulent attacks upon him was in a criticism on this treatise, 
and appeared in the Monthly Review^ to which he himself had 
been recently a contributor. It slandered him as a man while 
it decried him as an author, and accused him, by innuendo, of 
" laboring under the infamy of having, by the vilest and mean- 
est actions, forfeited all pretensions to honor and honesty," and 
of practising "those acts which bring the sharper to the cart's 
tail or the pillory." 

It will be remembered that the Review was owned by 
Griffiths the bookseller, with whom Goldsmith had recently 
had a misunderstanding. The criticism, therefore, was no 
doubt dictated by the fingerings of resentment ; and the 
imputations upon Goldsmith's character for honor and honesty, 
and the vile and mean actions , hinted at, could only allude to 
the unfortunate pawning of the clothes. All this, too, was 
after Griffiths had received the affecting letter from Goldsmith, 
drawing a picture of his poverty and perplexities, and after the 
latter had made him a literary compensation. Griffiths, in 
fact, was sensible of the falsehood and extravagance of the 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 81 

attack, and tried to exonerate himself by declaring that the 
criticism was written by a person in his employ ; but we see 
no difference in atrocity between him who wields the knife and 
him who hires the cut-throat. It may be well, however, in 
passing, to bestow our mite of notoriety upon the miscreant 
who launched the slander. He deserves it for a long course of 
dastardly and venomous attacks, not merely upon Goldsmith, 
but upon most of the successful authors of the day. His name 
was Kenrick. He was originally a mechanic, but, possess- 
ing some degree of talent and industry, applied himself to 
literature as. a profession. This he pursued for many years, 
and tried his hand in every department of prose and poetry ; 
he wrote plays and satires, philosophical tracts, critical dis- 
sertations, and works on philology ; nothing from his pen ever 
rose to first-rate excellence, or gained him a popular name, 
though he received from some university the degree of Doctor 
of Laws. Dr. Johnson characterized his literary career in one 
short sentence. " Sir, he is one of the many who have made 
themselves public without making themselves knovm.^^ 

Soured by his own want of success, jealous of the success 
of others, his natural irritability of temper increased by habits 
of intemperance, he at length abandoned himself to the prac- 
tice of reviewing, and became one of the Ishmaelites of the 
press. In this his malignant bitterness soon gave him a 
notoriety which his talents had never been able to attain. We 
shall dismiss him for the present with the following sketch of 
him by the hand of one of his contemporaries : 

" Dreaming of genius which he never had, 
Half wit, half fool, half critic, and half mad ; 
Seizing, like Shirley, on the poet's lyre, 
With all his rage, but not one spark of fire ; 
Eager for slaughter, and resolved to tear 
From others' brows that wreath he must not wear — 
Next Kenrick came : all furious and replete 
AVith brandy, malice, pertness, and conceit ; 
TJnskiird in classic lore, through envy blind 
To all that's beauteous, learned, or refined ; 
For faults alone behold the savage prowl, 
With reason's offal glut his ravening soul ; 
Pleased with his prey, its inmost blood he drinks, 
And mumbles, paws, and turns it — till it stinks." 



82 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

The British press about this time was extravagantly fruitful 
of periodical publications. That "oldest inhabitant," the 
Gentleman^n Magazine, almost coeval with St. John's gate 
which graced its title-page, had long been elbowed by magazines 
and reviews of all kinds : Johnson's Rambler had introduced 
the fashion of periodical essays, which he had followed up in 
his Adventurer and Idler. Imitations had sprung up -on every 
side, under every variety of name ; until British literature was 
entirely overrun by a weedy and transient efflorescence. Many 
of these rival periodicals choked each other almost at the out- 
set, and few of them have escaped oblivion. 

Goldsmith wrote for some of the most successful, such as the 
Bee, the Busy-Body, and the Lady^s Magazine. His essays, 
though characterized by his delightful style, his pure, benevo- 
lent morality, and his mellow, unobtrusive humor, did not pro- 
duce equal effect at first with more garish writings of infinitely 
less value ; they did not " strike," as it is termed ; but they 
had that rare and enduring merit which rises in estimation ou 
every perusal. They gradually stole upon the heart of the 
public, were copied into numerous contemporary publications, 
and now they are garnered up among the choice productions of 
British literature. 

In his "Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning," Gold- 
smith had given offence to David Garrick, at that time the 
autocrat of the Drama, and was doomed to experience its effect. 
A clamor had been raised against Garrick for exercising a des- 
potism over the stage, and bringing forward nothing but old 
plays to the exclusion of original productions. Walpole joined 
in this charge. " Garrick," said he, "is treating the town as 
it deserves and likes to be treated ; with scenes, fire- works, and 
his own writings. A good new play I never expect to see 
more ; nor have seen since the ' Provoked Husband,' which 
came out when I was at school." Goldsmith, who was ex- 
tremely fond of the theatre, and felt the evils of this system, 
inveighed in his treatise against the wrongs experienced by 
authors at the hands of managers. " Our poet's performance," 
said he, "must undergo a process truly chemical before it is 
presented to the public. It must be tried in the manager's 
fire ; strained through a licenser, suffer from repeated correc- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 83 

tions, till it may be a mere caput mortuum when it arrives 
before the public." Again. — " Getting a play on even in 
three or four years is a privilege reserved only for the happy 
few who have the arts of courting the manager as well as the 
Muse ; who have adulation to please his vanity, powerful pa- 
trons to support their merit, or money to indemnify disappoint- 
ment. Our Saxon ancestors had but one name for a wit and a 
witch. I will not dispute the propriety of uniting those char- 
acters then ; but the man who under present discouragements 
ventures to write for the stage, whatever claim he may have to 
the appellation of a wit, at least has no right to be called a 
conjurer." But a passage which perhaps touched more sensibly 
than all the rest on the sensibilities of Garrick, was the 
following. 

" I have no particular spleen against the fellow who sweeps 
the stage with the besom, or the hero who brushes it with his, 
train. It were a matter of indifference to me, whether our 
heroines are in keeping, or our caudle-snulfers burn their 
fingers, did not such make a great part of public care and 
polite conversation. Our actors assume all that state off the 
stage which they do on it ; and, to use an expression borrowed 
from the green-room, every one is uj) in his part. I am sorry 
to say it, they seem to forget their real characters." 

These strictures were considered by Garrick as intended for 
himself, and they were rankling in his mind when Goldsmith 
waited upon him and solicited his vote for the vacant secretary- 
ship of the Society of Arts, of which the manager was a mem- 
ber. Garrick, puffed up by his dramatic renown and his 
intimacy with the great, and knowing Goldsmith only by his 
budding reputation, may not have considered him of sufficient 
importance to be conciliated. In reply to his solicitations, he ob- 
served that he could hardly expect his friendly exertions after the 
unprovoked attack he had made upon his management. Gold- 
smith replied that he had indulged in no personalities, and had only 
spoken what he believed to be the truth. He made no further 
apology nor application ; failed to get the appointment, and 
considered Garrick his enemy. In the second edition of his 
treatise he expunged or modified the passages which had given 
the manager offence ; but though the author and actor became 



84 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

intimate in after years, this false step at the outset of their 
intercourse was never forgotten. 

About this time Goldsmith engaged with Dr. Smollett, who 
was about to launch the British Magazine. Smollett was a 
complete schemer and speculator in literature, and intent upon 
enterprises that had money rather than reputation in view. 
Goldsmith has a good-humored hit at this propensity in one of 
his papers in the Bee, in which he represents Johnson, Hume, 
and others taking seats in the stagecoach bound for Fame, 
while Smollett prefers that destined for Riches.^ 

Another prominent employer of Goldsmith was Mr. John 
Newbery, who engaged him to contribute occasional essays to 
a newspaper entitled the Public Ledger, which made its first 
appearance on the 12th of January, 1760. His most valuable 
and characteristic contributions to this paper were his " Chinese 
Letters," subsequently modified into the " Citizen of the World." 
These lucubrations attracted general attention ; they were re- 
printed in the various periodical publications of the day, and 
met with great applause. The name of the author, however, 
was as yet but little known. 

Being now easier in circumstances, and in the receipt of fre- 
quent sums from the booksellers, Goldsmith, about the middle 
of 1760, emerged from his dismal abode in Green Arbor Court, 
and took respectable apartments in Wine-Office Court, Fleet- 
street. 

Still he continued to look back with considerate benevolence 
to the poor hostess, whose necessities he had relieved by pawn- 
ing his gala coat, for we are told that " he often supplied her 
with food from his own table, and visited her frequently with 
the sole purpose to be kind to her." 

He now became a member of a debating club, called the 
Robin Hood, which used to meet near Temple Bar, and in which 
Burke, while yet a Temple student, had first tried his powers. 
Goldsmith spoke here occasionally, and is recorded in the Robin 
Hood archives as "a candid disputant, with a clear head and 
an honest heart, though coming but seldom to the society." 
His relish was for clubs of a more social, jovial nature, and he 
was never fond of argument. An amusing anecdote is told of 

1 The Bee, No. v. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 85 

his first introduction to the chib, by Samuel Derrick, an Irish 
acquaintance of some humor. On entering, Goldsmith was 
struck with the self-important appearance of the chairman en- 
sconced in a large gilt chair. " This," said he, " must be the 
Lord Chancellor at least." " No, no," rephed Derrick, " he's 
only master of the rolls" — The chairman was a haker. 



CHAPTER XII 

New lodgings — Visits of ceremony — Hangers-on — Pilkington and the 
white mouse — Introduction to Dr. Johnson — Davies and his hook- 
shop — Pretty Mrs. Davies — Foote and his projects — Criticism of 
tlie cudgel 

In his new lodgings in Wine-Office Court, Goldsmith began 
to receive visits of ceremony, and to entertain his literary friends. 
Among the latter he now numbered several names of note, such 
as Guthrie, Murphy, Christopher Smart, and Bickerstaflf. He 
had also a numerous class of hangers-on, the small fry of litera- 
ture ; who, knowing his almost utter incapacity to refuse a 
pecuniary request, were apt, now that he was considered flush, 
to levy continual taxes upon his purse. 

Among others, one Pilkington, an old college acquaintance, 
but now a shifting adventurer, duped him in the most ludicrous 
manner. He called on him with a face full of perplexity. A 
lady of the first rank having an extraordinary fancy for curious 
animals, for which she was willing to give enormous sums, he 
had procured a couple of white mice to be forwarded to her from 
India. They were actually on board of a ship in the river. 
Her grace had been apprised of their arrival, and was all im- 
patience to see them. Unfortunately, he had no cage to put 
them in, nor clothes to appear in before a lady of her rank. 
Two guineas would be sufficient for his purpose, but where were 
two guineas to be procured ! 

The simple heart of Goldsmith was touched ; but, alas ! he 
had but half a guinea in his pocket. It was unfortunate, but, 
after a pause, his friend suggested, with some hesitation, " that 
money might be raised upon his watch : it would but be the 
loan of a few hours." So said, so done ; the watch was deliv- 



86 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

ered to the worthy Mr. Pilkington to be pledged at a neigh- 
boring pawnbroker's, but nothing farther was ever seen of him, 
the watch, or the white mice. The next that Goldsmith heard 
of the poor shifting scapegrace, he was on his death-bed, starv- 
ing with want, upon which, forgetting or forgiving the trick he 
had played upon him, he sent him a guinea. Indeed he used 
often to relate with great humor the foregoing anecdote of his 
credidity, and was ultimately in some degree indemnified by its 
suggesting to him the amusing little story of "Prince Bonben- 
nin and the White Mouse " in the " Citizen of the World." ^ 

In this year Goldsmith became personally acquainted with 
Dr. Johnson, toward whom he was drawn by strong sympathies, 
though their natures were widely different. Both had struggled 
from early life with poverty, but had struggled in different 
ways. Goldsmith, buoyant, heedless, sanguine, tolerant of evils 
and easily pleased, had shifted along by any temporary expe- 
dient ; cast down at every turn, but rising again with indomi- 
table good-humor, and still carried forward by his talent at 
hoping. Johnson, melancholy and hypochondriacal, and prone 
to apprehend the worst, yet sternly resolute to battle with and 
conquer it, had made his way doggedly and gloomily, but with 
a noble principle of self-reliance and a disregard of foreign aid. 
Both had been irregular at college : Goldsmith, as we have 
shown, from the levity of his nature and his social and con- 
vivial habits ; Johnson, from his acerbity and gloom. When, 
in after life, the latter heard himself spoken of as gay and frolic- 
some at college, because he had joined in some riotous excesses 
there, "Ah, sir!" replied he, "I was mad and violent. It 
was bitterness which they mistook for frolic. / was miserably/ 
pool", and I thought to fight my tvay by my literature and my 
wit. So I disregarded all power and all authority." 

Goldsmith's poverty was never accompanied by bitterness ; 
but neither was it accompanied by the guardian pride which 
kept Johnson from falling into the degrading shifts of poverty. 
Goldsmith had an unfortunate facility at borrowing, and help- 
ing himself along by the contributions of his friends ; no doubt 
trusting, in his hopeful way, of one day making retribution. 
Johnson never hoped, and therefore never borrowed. In his 

1 Letters Nos. xlviii and xlix. 




SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 

1709-1784 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 8Y 

sternest trials he proudly bore the ills he conld not master. 
In his youth, when some unknown friend, seeing his shoes 
completely worn out, left a new pair at his chamber door, he 
disdained to accept the boon, and threw them away. 

Though like Goldsmith an immethodical student, he had im- 
bibed deeper draughts of knowledge, and made himself a riper 
scholar. While Goldsmith's happy constitution and genial hu- 
mors carried him abroad into sunshine and enjoyment, Johnson's 
physical infirmities and mental gloom drove him upon himself; 
to tlie resources of reading and meditation ; threw a deeper 
though darker enthusiasm into his mind, and stored a retentive 
memory with all kinds of knowledge. 

After several years of youth passed in the country as usher, 
teacher, and an occasional writer for the press, Johnson, when 
twenty-eight years of age, came up to London with a half- 
written ti'agedy in his pocket; and David Garrick, late his 
pupil, and several years his junior, as a companion, both poor 
and penniless, both, like Goldsmith, seeking their fortune in 
the metropolis. "We rode and tied," said Garrick, sportively, 
in after years of prosperity, when he spoke of their humble 
wayfaring. " I came to London," said Johnson, " with two- 
pence halfpenny in my pocket." — " Eh, what's that you say ? " 
cried Garrick, "with twopence halfpenny in your pocket?" 
" Why, yes : I came with twopence halfpenny in my pocket, 
and thou, Davy, with but three halfpence in thine." Nor was 
there much exaggeration in the picture ; for so poor were they 
in purse and credit, that after their arrival they had, with diffi- 
culty, raised five pounds, by giving their joint note to a book- 
seller in the Strand. 

Many, many years had Johnson gone on obscurely in London, 
" fighting his way by his literature and his wit " ; enduring all 
the hardships and miseries of a Grub-street writer : so destitute 
at one time, that he and Savage the poet had walked all night 
about St. James's Square, both too poor to pay for a night's 
lodging, yet both full of poetry and patriotism, and determined 
to stand by their country ; so shabby in dress at another time, 
that when he dined at Cave's, his bookseller, when there was 
prosperous company, he could not make his appearance at table, 
but had his dinner handed to him behind a screen. 



88 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Yet through all the long and dreary struggle, often diseased 
in mind as well as in body, he had been resolutely self-depend- 
ent, and proudly self-respectful ; he had fulfilled his college 
vow, he had "fought his way by his literature and his wit." 
His Rambler and Idler had made him the great moralist of 
the age, and his "Dictionary and History of the English 
Language," that stupendous monument of individual labor, 
had excited the admiration of the learned world. He was 
now at the head of intellectual society ; and had become as 
distinguished by his conversational as his literary powers. He 
had become as much an autocrat in his sphere as his fellow- 
wayfarer and adventurer Garrick had become of the stage, and 
had been humorously dubbed by Smollett, " The Great Cham 
of Literature." 

Such was Dr. Johnson, when on the 31st of May, 1761, he 
was to make his appearance as a guest at a literary supper 
given by Goldsmith, to a numerous party at his new lodgings 
in Wine-Office Court. It was the opening of their acquaint- 
ance. Johnson had felt and acknowledged the merit of Gold- 
smith as an author, and been pleased by the honorable mention 
made of himself in the Bee and the " Chinese Letters." Dr. 
Percy called upon Johnson to take him to Goldsmith's lodg- 
ings ; he found Johnson arrayed with unusual care in a new 
suit of clothes, a new hat, and a well-powdered wig ; and could 
not but notice his uncommon spruceness. " Why, sir," replied 
Johnson, " I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, 
justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting my 
practice, and I am desirous this night to show him a better 
example." 

The acquaintance thus commenced ripened into intimacy in 
the course of frequent meetings at the shop of Davies. the book- 
seller, in Russell-street, Covent Garden. As this was one of 
the great literary gossiping places of the day, especially to the 
circle over which Johnson presided, it is worthy of some speci- 
fication. Mr. Thomas Davies, noted in after times as the 
biographer of Garrick, had originally been on the stage, and 
though a small man, had enacted tyrannical tragedy, with a 
pomp and magniloquence beyond his size, if we may trust the 
description given of him by Churchill in the " Rosciad " : 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH ' 89 

" Statesman all over — in plots famous grown, 
He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a hone.'''' 

This unlucky sentence is said to have crippled him in the midst 
of his tragic career, and ultimately to have driven him from 
the stage. He carried into the bookselling craft somewhat of 
the grandiose manner of the stage, and was prone to be mouthy 
and magniloquent. 

Churchill had intimated, that while on the stage he was 
more noted for his pretty wife than his good acting : 

" With him came mighty Davies ; on my life, 
That fellow has a very pretty wife." 

" Pretty Mrs. Davies " continued to be the lode-star of his 
fortunes. Her tea-table became almost as much a literary 
lounge as her husband's shop. She found favor in the eyes of 
the Ursa Major of literature by her winning ways, as she poured 
out for him cups without stint of his favorite beverage. In- 
deed it is suggested that she was one leading cause of his 
habitual resort to this literary haunt. Others were drawn 
thither for the sake of Johnson's conversation, and thus it be- 
came a resort of many of the notorieties of the day. Here 
might occasionally be seen Bennet Langton, George Steevens, 
Dr. Percy, celebrated for his ancient ballads, and sometimes 
Warburton in prelatic state. Garrick resorted to it for a time, 
but soon grew shy and suspicious, declaring that most of the 
authors who frequented Mr. Davies's shop went merely to 
abuse him. 

Foote, the Aristophanes of the day, was a frequent visitor ; 
his broad face beaming with fun and waggery, and his satirical 
eye ever on the look-out for characters and incidents for his 
farces. He was struck with the odd habits and appearance 
of Johnson and Goldsmith, now so often brought together in 
Davies's shop. He was about to put on the stage a farce 
called " The Orators," intended as a hit at the Robin Hood de- 
bating club, and resolved to show up the two doctors in it for 
the entertainment of the town. 

" What is the common price of an oak stick, sir ? " said John- 
son to Davies. " Sixpence," was the reply. " Why then, sir, 



90 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

give me leave to send your servant to purchase a shilling one. 
I'll have a double quantity ; for I am told Foote means to take 
me off, as he calls it, and I am determined the fellow shall not 
do it with impunity," 

Foote had no disposition to undergo the criticism of the 
cudgel wielded by such potent hands, so the farce of "The 
Orators " appeared without the caricatures of the lexicographer 
and the essayist. 

CHAPTER XIII 

Oriental projects — Literary jobs — The Cherokee chiefs — Merry Is- 
lington and the White Conduit House — Letters on the history of 
England — James Boswell — Dinner of Da vies — Anecdotes of John- 
son and Goldsmith 

Notwithstanding his growing success, Goldsmith continued 
to consider literature a mere make-shift, and his vagrant imagi- 
nation teemed with schemes and plans of a grand but indefinite 
nature. One was for visiting the East and exploring the in- 
terior of Asia. He had, as has been before observed, a vague 
notion that valuable discoveries were to be made there, and 
many useful inventions in the arts brought back to the stock 
of European knowledge. " Thus, in Siberian Tartary," ob- 
serves he, in one of his writings, " the natives extract a strong 
spirit from milk, which is a secret probably unknown to the 
chemists of Europe. In the most savage parts of India they 
are possessed of the secret of dyeing vegetable substances scar- 
let, and that of refining lead into a metal which, for hardness 
and color, is little inferior to silver." ^ 

Goldsmith adds a description of the kind of person suited to 
such an enterprise, in which he evidently had himself in view. 

" He should be a man of philosophical turn, one apt to 
deduce consequences of general utility from particular occur- 
rences ; neither swoln with pride, nor hardened by prejudice ; 
neither wedded to one particular system, nor instructed only in 
one particular science ; neither wholly a botanist, nor quite an 
antiquarian ; his mind should be tinctured with miscellaneous 
knowledge, and his manners humanized by an intercourse witli 

1 Citizen of the World, Letter cviii. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 91 

men. He should be in some measure an enthusiast to the 
design ; fond of travelling, from a rapid imagination and an in- 
nate love of change ; furnished with a body capable of sustaining 
every fatigue, and a heart not easily terrified at danger." 

In 1761, when Lord Bute became prime minister on the ac- 
cession of George the Third, Goldsmith drew up a memorial on 
the subject, suggesting the advantages to be derived from a mis- 
sion to those countries solely for useful and scientific purposes ; 
and, the better to insure success, he preceded his application to 
th^ government by an ingenious essay to the same effect in the 
Public Ledger. 

His memorial and his essay were fruitless, his project most 
probably being deemed the dream of a visionary. Still it con- 
tinued to haunt his mind, and he would often talk of making 
an expedition to Aleppo some time or other, when his means 
were greater, to inquire into the arts peculiar to the East, and 
to bring home such as might be valuable. Johnson, who knew 
how little poor Goldsmith was fitted by scientific lore for this 
favorite scheme of his fancy, scoffed at the project when it was 
mentioned to him. " Of all men," said he, " Goldsmith is the 
most unfit to go out upon such an inquiry, for he is utterly 
ignorant of such arts as we already possess, and, consequently, 
could not know what would be accessions to our present stock 
of mechanical knowledge. Sir, he would bring home a grinding 
barrow, which you see in every street in London, and think that 
he had furnished a wonderful improvement." 

His connection with Newbery the bookseller now led him into 
a variety of temporary jobs, such as a pamphlet on the " Cock- 
lane Ghost," a "Life of Beau Nash," the famous master of 
ceremonies at Bath, &c. : one of the best things for his fame, 
however, was the remodelling and republication of his " Chinese 
Letters " under the title of the " Citizen of the World," a work 
which has long since taken its merited stand among the classics 
of the English language. " Few works," it has been observed 
by one of his biographers, " exhibit a nicer perception, or more 
delicate delineation of life and manners. Wit, humor, and sen- 
timent pervade every page ; the vices and follies of the day are 
touched with the most playful and diverting satire ; and English 
characteristics, in endless variety, are hit off with the pencil of 
a master." 



92 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

In seeking materials for his varied views of life, he often 
mingled in strange scenes and got involved in whimsical situa- 
tions. In the summer of 1762 he was one of the thousands who 
V I went to see the Cherokee chiefs, whom he mentions in one of 
V I his writings. The Indians made their appearance in grand cos- 
tume, hideously painted and besmeared. In the course of the 
visit G-oldsmith made one of the chiefs a present, who, in the 
ecstasy of his gratitude, gave him an embrace that left his face 
well bedaubed with oil and red ochre. 

Towards the close of 1762 he removed to " merry Islington," 
then a country village, though now swallowed up in omnivorous 
London. He went there for the benefit of country air, his health 
being injured by literary application and confinement, and to be 
near his chief employer, Mr. Newbery, who resided in the Can- 
onbury House. In this neighborhood he used to take his soli- 
tary rambles, sometimes extending his walks to the gardens of 
the "White Conduit House," so famous among the essayists of 
the last century. While strolling one day in these gardens, he 
met three females of the family of a respectable tradesman to 
whom he was under some obligation. With his prompt dispo- 
sition to oblige, he conducted them about the garden, treated 
them to tea, and ran up a bill in the most open-handed manner 
imaginable ; it was only when he came to pay that he found 
himself in one of his old dilemmas — he had not the where- 
withal in his pocket. A scene of perplexity now took place be- 
tween him and the waiter, in the midst of which came up some 
of his acquaintances, in whose eyes he wished to stand particu- 
larly well. This completed his mortification. There was no 
concealing the awkwardness of his position. The sneers of 
the waiter revealed it. His acquaintances amused themselves 
for some time at his expense, professing their inability to re- 
lieve him. When, however, they had enjoyed their banter, the 
waiter was paid and poor Goldsmith enabled to convoy off 
the ladies with flying colors. 

Among the various productions thrown off by him for the 
booksellers during this growing period of his reputation, was a 
small work in two volumes, entitled the " History of England, 
in a series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son." It was 
digested from Hume, Rapin, Carte, and Kennet. These authors 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 93 

he would read in the morning ; make a few notes ; ramble with 
a friend into the country about the skirts of " merry Islington " ; 
return to a temperate dinner, and cheerful evening ; and, before 
going to bed, write off what had arranged itself in his head from 
the studies of the morning. In this way he took a more gen- 
eral view of the subject, and wrote in a more free and fluent 
style than if he had been mousing at the time among authori- _^ 
ties. The work, like many others written by him in the earlier 
part of his literary career, was anonymous. Some attributed it 
to tiord Chesterfield, others to Lord Orrery, and others to Lord 
Lyttelton. The latter seemed pleased to be the putative father, 
and never disowned the bantling thus laid at his door; and 
well might he have been proud to be considered capable of pro- 
ducing what has been well pronounced " the most finished and 
elegant summary of English history in the same compass that 
has been or is likely to be written." 

The reputation of Goldsmith, it will be perceived, grew 
slowly ; he was known and estimated by a few ; but he had 
not those brilliant though fallacious qualities which flash upon 
the public, and excite loud but transient applause. His works 
were more read than cited ; and the charm of style, for which 
he was especially noted, was more apt to be felt than talked 
about. He used often to repine, in a half-humorous, half- 
querulous manner, at his tardiness in gaining the laurels which 
he felt to be his due. " The public," he would exclaim, " will 
never do me justice; whenever I write any thing, they make a 
point to know nothing about it." 

About the beginning of 1763 he became acquainted with 
Boswell, whose literary gossipings were destined to have a^ 
deleterious eftect upon his reputation. Boswell was at that 
time a young man, light, buoyant, pushing, and presum.ptuous. 
He had a morbid passion for mingling in the society of men 
noted for wit and learning, and had just arrived from Scotland, 
bent upon making his way into the literary circles of the me- 
tropolis. An intimacy with Dr. Johnson, the great literary 
luminary of the day, was the crowning object of his aspiring 
and somewhat ludicrous ambition. He expected to meet him 
at a dinner to which he was invited at Davies the bookseller's, 
but was disappointed. Goldsmith was present, but he was not 



94 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

as yet sufficiently renowned to excite the reverence of Boswell. 
" At this time," says he in his notes, " I think he had pub- 
lished nothing with his name, though it was pretty generally 
understood that one Dr. Goldsmith was the author of 'An 
Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe,' 
and of ' The Citizen of the World,' a series of letters supposed 
to be written from London, by a Chinese." 

A conversation took place at table between Goldsmith and 
Mr. Kobert Dodsley, compiler of the well-known collection of 
modern poetry, as to the merits of the current poetry of the 
day. Goldsmith declared there was none of superior merit. 
Dodsley cited his own collection in proof of the contrary. " It 
is true," said he, " we can boast of no palaces now-a-days, like 
Dry den's ' Ode to St. Cecilia's Day,' but we have villages com- 
posed of very pretty houses." Goldsmith, however, maintained 
that there was nothing above mediocrity, an opinion in which 
Johnson, to whom it was repeated, concurred, and with reason, 
for the era was one of the dead levels of British poetry. 

Boswell has made no note of this conversation ; he was an 
unitarian in his literary devotion, and disposed to worship none 
but Johnson. Little Davies endeavored to console him for his 
disappointment, and to stay the stomach of his curiosity, by 
giving him imitations of the great lexicographer ; mouthing his 
words, rolling his head, and assuming as ponderous a manner 
as his petty person would permit. Boswell was shortly after- 
wards made happy by an introduction to Johnson, of whom he 
became the obsequious satellite. From him he likewise imbibed 
a more favorable opinion of Goldsmith's merits, though he was 
fain to consider them derived in a great measure from his Mag- 
nus Apollo. "He had sagacity enough," says he, "to cultivate 
assiduously the acquaintance of Johnson, and his faculties were 
gradually enlarged by the contemplation of such a model. To 
me and many others it appeared that he studiously copied the 
manner of Johnson, though, indeed, upon a smaller scale." So 
on another occasion he calls him "one of the brightest orna- 
ments of the Johnsonian school." " His respectful attachment 
to Johnson," adds he, " was then at its height ; for his own 
literary reputation had not yet distinguished him so much as 
to excite a vain desire of competition with his great master." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 95 

What beautiful instances does the garrulous Boswell give of 
the goodness of heart of Johnson, and the passing homage to 
it by Goldsmith. They were speaking of a Mr, Levett, long 
an inmate of Johnson's house and a dependent on his bounty ; 
but who, Boswell thought, must be an irksome charge upon 
him. "He is poor and honest," said Goldsmith, "which is 
recommendation enough to Johnson." 

Boswell mentioned another person of a very bad character, 
and wondered at Johnson's kindness to him. "He is now 
become miserable," said Goldsmith, "and that insures the 
protection of Johnson." Encomiums like these speak almost 
as much for the heart of him who praises as of him who is 
praised. 

Subsequently, when Boswell had become more intense in 
his literary idolatry, he affected to undervalue Goldsmith, and 
a lurking hostility to him is discernible throughout his writ- 
ings, which some have attributed to a silly spirit of jealousy 
of the superior esteem evinced for the poet by Dr. Johnson. 
We have a gleam of this in his account of the first evening he 
spent in company with those two eminent authors at their 
famous resort, the Mitre Tavern, in Fleet-street. This took 
place on the 1st of July, 1763. The trio supped together, and 
passed some time in literary conversation. On quitting the 
tavern, Johnson, who had now been sociably acquainted with 
Goldsmith for two years, and knew his merits, took him with 
him to drink tea with his blind pensioner. Miss Williams ; a 
high privilege among his intimates and admirers. To Boswell, 
a recent acquaintance, whose intrusive sycophancy had not yet 
made its way into his confidential intimacy, he gave no invita- 
tion. Boswell felt it with all the jealousy of a little mind. 
"Dr. Goldsmith," says he, in his memoirs, "being a privileged 
man, went with him, strutting away, and calling to me with an 
air of superiority, like that of an esoteric over an exoteric dis- 
ciple of a sage of antiquity, ' I go to Miss WiUiams.' I con- 
fess I then envied him this mighty privilege, of which he 
seemed to be so proud ; but it was not long before I obtained 
the same mark of distinction." 

Obtained ! but how ? not like Goldsmith, by the force of 
unpretending but congenial merit, but by a course of the most 



96 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

pushing, contriving, and spaniel-like subserviency. Really, the 
ambition of the man to illustrate his mental insignificance, by 
continually placing himself in juxtaposition with the great lexi- 
cographer, has something in it perfectly ludicrous. Never, 
since the days of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, has there 
been presented to the woiid a more whimsically contrasted pair 
of associates than Johnson and Boswell. 

" Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson's heels ? " asked some 
one when Boswell had worked his way into incessant companion- 
ship. "He is not a cur," replied Goldsmith, "you are too se- 
vere ; he is only a bur. Tom Davies flung him at Johnson in 
sport, and he has the faculty of sticking." 



CHAPTER XIV 

Hogarth a visitor at Islington; his character — Street studies — Sj'^m- 
pathies between authors and painters — Sir Joshua Reynolds; his 
character; his dinners — The Literary Club; its members — John- 
son's revels Avith Laukey and Beau — Goldsmith at the club 

Among the intimates who used to visit the poet occasionally 
in his retreat at Islington,- was Hogarth the painter. Goldsmith 
had spoken well of him in his essays in the Public Ledger, and 
this formed tlie first link m their friendship. He was at this time 
upwai'ds of sixty years of age, and is described as a stout, active, 
bustling little man, in a sky-blue coat, satirical and dogmatic, 
yet full of real benevolence and the love of human nature. He 
was the moralist and philosopher of the pencil ; like Goldsmith 
he had sounded the depths of vice and misery, without being 
polluted by them ; and though his picturings had not the per- 
vading amenity of those of the essayist, and dwelt more on the 
crimes and vices than the follies and humors of mankind, yet 
they were all calculated, in like manner, to fill the mind with 
instruction and precept, and to make the heart better. 

Hogarth does not appear to have had much of the rural feel- 
ing with whicli Goldsmith was so amply endowed, and may not 
have accompanied him in his strolls about hedges and green 
lanes ; but he was a fit companion with whom to explore the 
mazes of London, in which lie was continually on the look-out 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 97 

for character and incident. One of Hogarth's admirers speaks 
of having come upon him in Castle-street, engaged in one of his 
street studies, watching two boys who were quarrelling ; patting 
one on the back who flinched, and endeavoring to spirit him up 
to a fresh encounter. " At him again ! D — him, if I would 
take it of him ! at him again ! " 

A frail memorial of this intimacy between the painter and the 
poet exists in a portrait in oil, called " Goldsmith's Hostess." 
It is supposed to have been painted by Hogarth in the course 
o^his visits to Islington, and given by him to tlie poet as a 
means of paying his landlady. There are no friendships among 
men of talents more likely to be sincere than those between 
painters and poets. Possessed of the same qualities of mind, 
governed by the same principles of taste and natural laws of 
grace and beauty, but applying them to different yet mutually 
illustrative arts, they are constantly in sympathy, and never in 
collision with each other. 

A still more congenial intimacy of the kind was that con- 
tracted by Goldsmith with Mr., afterwards Sir Joshua, Rey- 
nolds. The latter was now about forty years of age, a few years 
older than the poet, whom he charmed by the blandness and 
benignity of his manners, and the nobleness and generosity of 
his disposition, as much as he did by the graces of his pencil 
and the magic of his coloring. They were men of kindred 
genius, excelling in corresponding qualities of their several arts, 
for style in writing is what color is in painting ; both are in- 
nate endowments, and equally magical in their effects. Certain 
graces and harmonies of both may be acquired by diligent study 
and imitation, but only in a limited degree ; whereas by their 
natural possessors they are exercised spontaneously, almost un- 
consciously, and with ever- varying fascination. Reynolds soon 
vinderstood and appreciated the merits of Goldsmith, and a 
incere and lasting friendship ensued between them. 

At Reynolds's house Goldsmith mingled in a higher range 
if company than he had been accustomed to. The fame of 
this celebrated artist, and his amenity of manners, were gath- 
ering round him men of talents of all kinds, and the increasing 
affluence of his circumstances enabled him to give full indul- 
gence to his hospitable disposition. Poor Goldsmith had not 



98 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

yet, like Dr. Johnson, acquired reputation enough to atone for 
his external defects and his want of the air of good society. 
Miss Reynolds used to inveigh against his personal appearance, 
which gave her the idea, she said, of a low mechanic, a journey- 
man tailor. One evening at a large supper party, being called 
upon to give as a toast the ugliest man she knew, she gave Dr. 
Goldsmith, upon which a lady who sat opposite, and whom she 
had never met before, shook hands with her across the table, 
and " hoped to become better acquainted." 

We have a graphic and amusing picture of Reynolds's 
hospitable but motley establishment, in an account given 
by a Mr. Courtenay to Sir James Mackintosh ; though it 
speaks of a time after Reynolds had received the honor of 
knighthood. " There was something singular," said he, " in 
the style and economy of Sir Joshua's table that contributed 
to pleasantry and good-humor, a coarse, inelegant plenty, with- 
out any regard to order and arrangement. At five o'clock 
precisely, dinner was served, whether all the invited guests 
were arrived or not. Sir Joshua was never so fashionably ill- 
bred as to wait an hour perhaps for two or three persons of 
rank or title, and put the rest of the company out of humor 
by this invidious distinction. His invitations, however, did 
not regulate the number of his guests. Many dropped in un- 
invited. A table prepared for seven or eight was often com- 
pelled to contain fifteen or sixteen. There was a consequent 
deficiency of knives, forks, plates, and glasses. The attendance 
was in the same style, and those who were knowing in the 
ways of the house took care on sitting down to call instantly 
for beer, bread, or wine, that they might secure a supply be- 
fore the first course was over. He was once prevailed on to 
furnish the table with decanters and glasses at dinner, to save 
time and prevent confusion. These gradually were demolished 
in the course of service, and were never replaced. These 
trifling embarrassments, however, only served to enhance the 
hilarity and singular pleasure of the entertainment. The wine, 
cookery, and dishes were but little attended to ; nor was the 
fish or venison ever talked of or recommended. Amidst this 
convivial animated bustle among his guests, our host sat 
perfectly composed ; always attentive to what was said, never 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 99 

minding what was ate or drank, but left every one at jberfect 
liberty to scramble for himself." 

Out of the casual but frequent meeting of men of talent at 
this hospitable board rose that association of wits, authors, 
scholars, and statesmen, renowned as the Literary Club. 
Reynolds was the first to propose a regular association of the 
kind, and was eagerly seconded by Johnson, who proposed as a 
model a club which he had formed many years previously in 
Iv^ Lane, but which was now extinct. Like that club the 
number of members was limited to nine. They were to meet 
and sup together once a week, on Monday night, at the Turk's 
Head on Gerard-street, Soho, and two members were to con- 
stitute a meeting. It took a regular form in the year 1764, 
but did not receive its literary appellation until several years 
afterwards. 

The original members were Eeynolds, Johnson, Burke, 
Dr. Nugent, Bennet Langton, Topham Beauclerc, Chamier, 
Hawkins, and Goldsmith ; and here a few words concerning 
some of the members may be acceptable. Burke was at that 
time about thirty-three years of age ; he had mingled a little 
in politics and been Under Secretary to Hamilton at Dublin, 
but was again a writer for the booksellers, and as yet but in 
the dawning of his fame. Dr. Nugent was his father-in-law, a 
Roman Catholic, and a physician of talent and instruction. 
Mr., afterwards Sir John, Hawkins was admitted into this asso- 
ciation from having been a member of Johnson's Ivy Lane club. 
Originally an attorney, he had retired from the practice of the 
law, in consequence of a large fortune which fell to him in right 
of his wife, and was now a Middlesex magistrate. He was, 
moreover, a dabbler in literature and music, and was actually 
engaged on a history of music, which he subsequently published 
in five ponderous volumes. To him we are also indebted for a 
biography of Johnson, which appeared after the death of that 
eminent man. Hawkins was as mean and parsimonious as he 
was pompous and conceited. He forbore to partake of the 
suppers at the club, and begged therefore to be excused from 
paying his share of the reckoning. " And was he excused 1 " 
asked Dr. Burney of Johnson. " Oh yes, for no man is angry 
at another| ^Yq fb^ig inferior to himself. We all scorned him 



100 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

and admitted his plea. Yet I really believe him to be an 
honest man at bottom, though to be sure he is penurious, and 
he is mean, and it must be owned he has a tendency to savage- 
ness." He did not remain above two or three years in the 
club ; being in a manner elbowed out in consequence of his 
rudeness to Burke. 

Mr. Anthony Chamier was Secretary in the war office, and a 
friend of Beauclerc, by whom he was proposed. We have left 
our mention of Bennet Langton and Topham Beauclerc until 
the last, because we have most to say about them. They 
"were doubtless induced to join the club through their devotion 
to Johnson, and the intimacy of these two very young and 
aristocratic young men with the stern and somew^hat melancholy 
moralist is- among the curiosities of literature. 

Bennet Langton was of an ancient family, who held their 
ancestral estate of Langton in Lincolnshire, a great title to 
respect with Johnson. "Langton, sir," he would say, "has a 
grant of free-warren from Henry the Second ; and Cardinal 
Stephen Langton, in King John's reign, was of this family." 

Langton was of a mild, contemplative, enthusiastic nature. 
When but eighteen years of age he was so delighted with read- 
ing Johnson's Rambler, that he came to London chiefly with a 
view to obtain an introduction to the author. Boswell gives 
us an account of his first interview, which took place in the 
morning. It is not often that the personal appearance of an 
author agrees with the preconceived ideas of his admirer. 
Langton, from perusing the writings of Johnson, expected to 
find him a decent, w^ell dressed, in short a remarkably decorous 
philosopher. Instead of which, down from his bedchamber 
about noon, came, as newly risen, a large uncouth figure, with 
a little dark wig which scarcely covered his head, and his 
clothes hanging loose about him. But his conversation was so 
rich, so animated, and so forcible, and his religious and 
political notions so congenial with those in which Langton had 
been educated, that he conceived for him that veneration and 
attachment w^hich he ever preserved. 

Langton went to pursue his studies at Trinity College, Ox- 
ford, where Johnson saw much of him during a visit which he 
paid to the University. He found him in close intimacy with 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 101 

Topham Beauclerc, a youth two years older than himself, very 
gay and dissipated, and wondered what sympathies could draw 
two young men together of such opposite characters. On be- 
coming acquainted with Beauclerc he found that, rake though 
he was, he possessed an ardent love of literature, an acute 
understanding, polished wit, innate gentility, and high aristo- 
cratic breeding. He was, moreover, the only son of Lord Sid- 
ney Beauclerc and grandson of tlie Duke of St. Albans, and 
was thought in some particulars to have a resemblance to 
Charles the Second. These were high recommendations with 
Johnson, and when the youth testified a profound respect 
for him and an ardent admiration of his talents the conquest 
was complete, so that in a "short time," says Boswell, "the 
moral pious Johnson and the gay dissipated Beauclerc were 
companions." 

The intimacy begun in college chambers was continued when 
the youths came to town during the vacations. The uncouth, 
unwieldy moralist was flattered at finding himself an object of 
idolatry to two high-born, high-bred, aristocratic young men, 
and throwing gravity aside, was ready to join in their vagaries 
and play the part of a " young man upon town." Such at 
least is the picture given of him by Boswell on one occasion 
when Beauclerc and Langton having supped together at a 
tavern determined to give Johnson a rouse at three o'clock in the 
morning. They accordingly rapped violently at the door of his 
chambers in the Temple. The indignant sage sallied forth in 
his shirt, poker in hand, and a little black wig on the top of 
his head, instead of helmet ; prepared to wreak vengeance on 
the assailants of his castle : but when his two young friends, 
Lankey and Beau, as he used to call them, presented them- 
selves, summoning him forth to a morning ramble, his whole 
manner changed. " What, is it you, ye dogs ? " cried he. 
" Faith, I'll have a frisk with you ! " 

So said so done. They sallied forth together into Covent- 
Garden ; figured among the green grocers and fruit women, just 
come in from the country with their hampers ; repaired to a 
neighboring tavern, where Johnson brewed a bowl of bishop, a 
favorite beverage with him, grew merry over his cups, and 
anathematized sleep in two lines, from Lord Lansdowne's drink- 
ing song : 



102 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

" Short, very short, be then thy reign, 
For I'm in haste to laugh and drink again." 

They then took boat again, rowed to Billingsgate, and John- 
son and Beauclerc determined, like "mad wags," to "keep it 
up " for the rest of the day. Langton, however, the most 
sober-minded of the three, pleaded an engagement to break- 
fast with some young ladies ; whereupon the great moralist 
reproached him with "leaving his social friends to go and sit 
with a set of wretched un-idea'd girls." 

This madcap freak of the great lexicographer made a sen- 
sation, as may well be supposed, among his intimates. " I 
heard of your frolic t'other night," said Garrick to him ; "you'll 
be in the Chronicle.^'' He uttered worse forebodings to others. 
" I shall have my old friend to bail out of the round-house," 
said he. Johnson, however, valued himself upon having thus 
enacted a chapter in the Rake's Progress, and crowed over 
Garrick on the occasion. " lie durst not do such a thing ! " 
chuckled he, " his ivife would not let him ! " 

When these two young men entered the club, Langton was 
about twenty-two, and Beauclerc about twenty-four years of 
age, and both were launched on London life. Langton, how- 
ever, was still the mild, enthusiastic scholar, steeped to the 
lips in Greek, with fine conversational powers, and an invalu- 
able talent for listening. He was upwards of six feet high, 
and very spare. "Oh! that we could sketch him," exclaims 
Miss Hawkins, in her "Memoirs," "with his mild countenance, 
his elegant features, and his sweet smile, sitting with one leg 
twisted round the other, as if fearing to occupy more space 
than was equitable ; his person inclining forward, as if wanting 
strength to support his weight, and his arms crossed over his 
bosom, or his hands locked together on his knee." Beauclerc, 
on such occasions, sportively compared him to a stork in 
Raphael's Cartoons, standing on one leg. Beauclerc was more a 
" man upon town," a lounger in St. James's Street, an associ- 
ate with George Selwyn, with Walpole, and other aristocratic 
wits ; a man of fashion at court ; a casual frequenter of the gam- 
ing-table ; yet, with all this, he alternated in the easiest and 
happiest manner the scholar and the man of letters ; lounged 
into the club with the most perfect self-possession, bringing 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 103 

with him the careless grace and polished wit of high-bred so- 
ciety, but making himself cordially at home among his learned 
fellow-members. 

The gay yet lettered rake maintained his sway over Johnson, 
who was fascinated by that air of the world, that ineffable tone 
of good society in which he felt himself deficient, especially as 
the possessor of it always paid homage to his superior talent. 
" Beauclerc," he would say, using a quotation from Pope, " has 
a love of folly, but a scorn of fools ; every thing he does shows 
th« one, and every thing he says the other." Beauclerc de- 
lighted in rallying the stern moralist of whom others stood in 
awe, and no one, according to Boswell, could take equal liberty 
with him with impunity. Johnson, it is well known, was 
often shabby and negligent in his dress, and not over cleanly in 
his person. On receiving a pension from the crown,' his friends 
vied with each other in respectful congratulations. Beauclerc 
simply scanned his person with a whimsical glance, and hoped 
that, like Falstaff, " he'd in future purge and live cleanly like 
a gentleman." Johnson took the hint with unexpected good- 
humor, and profited by it. 

Still Beauclerc's satirical vein, which darted shafts on every 
side, was not always tolerated by Johnson. " Sir," said he on 
one occasion, " you never open your mouth but with intention 
to give pain ; and you have often given me pain, not from the 
power of what you have said, but from seeing your intention." 

When it was at first proposed to enroll Goldsmith among 
the members of this association, there seems to have been some 
demur ; at least so says the pompous Hawkins. "As he wrote 
for the booksellers, we of the club looked on him as a mere 
literary drudge, equal to the task of comjDiling and trans- 
lating, but little capable of original and still less of poetical 
composition." 

Even for some time after his admission, he continued to be 
regarded in a dubious light by some of the members. Johnson 
and Reynolds, of course, were well aware of his merits, nor was 
Burke a stranger to them ; but to the others he was as 
yet a sealed book, and the outside was not prepossessing. 
His ungainly person and awkward manners were against 
him with men accustomed to the graces of society, and he 



104 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

was not sufficiently at home to give play to his humor and 
to that bonhommie which won the hearts of all who knew him. 
He felt strange and out of place in this new sphere ; he felt at 
times the cool satirical eye of the courtly Beauclerc scanning 
him, and the more he attempted to appear at his ease, the 
more awkward he became. 



CHAPTER XV 

Johnson a monitor to Goldsmith ; finds him in distress with his land- 
lady; relieved by the Vicar of Wakefield — The oratorio — Poem 
of The Traveller — The poet and his dog — Success of the poem — 
Astonishment of the club — Observations on the poem 

Johnson had now become one of Goldsmith's best friends 
and advisers. He knew all the weak points of his character, 
but he knew also his merits ; and while he would rebuke him 
like a child, and rail at his errors and follies, he would suffer no 
one else to undervalue him. Goldsmith knew the soundness of 
his judgment and his practical benevolence, and often sought 
his counsel and aid amid the difficulties into which his heedless- 
ness was continually plunging him. 

"I received one morning," says Johnson, "a message from 
poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was 
not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to 
him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised 
to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was 
dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his 
rent, at which he was in a violent passion : I perceived that he 
had already changed my guinea, and had a bottle of Madeira 
and a glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired 
he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by 
which he might be extricated. He then told me he had a 
novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked 
into it and saw its merit ; told the landlady I should soon re- 
turn ; and, having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. 
I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, 
not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used 
him so ill." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 105 

The novel in question wos the "Vicar of Wakefield '' : the 
bookseller to whom Johnson sold it was Francis Newbery, 
nephew to John. Strange as it may seem, this captivating 
work, which has obtained and preserved an almost unrivalled 
popularity in various languages, was so little appreciated by 
the bookseller, that he kept it by him for nearly two years 
unpublished ! 

Goldsmith had, as yet, produced nothing of moment in 
poetry. Among his literary jobs, it is true, was an oratorio 
entitled " The Captivity," founded on the bondage of the Isra- 
elites in Babylon. It was one of those unhappy offsprings 
of the Muse ushered into existence amid the distortions of 
music. Most of the oratorio has passed into oblivion j but the 
following song from it will never die. 

"The wretch condemned from life to part, 
Still, still on hope relies, 
And every pang that rends the heart 
Bids expectation rise. 

" Hope, like the glimmering taper's light, 
Illumes and cheers our way; 
And still, as darker grows the night, 
Emits a brighter ray." 

Goldsmith distrusted his qualifications to succeed in poetry, 
and doubted the disposition of the public mind in regard to it. 
" I fear," said he, "I have come too late into the world ; Pope 
and other poets have taken up the places in the temple of 
Fame ; and as few at any period can possess poetical reputa- 
tion, a man of genius can now hardly acquire it." Again, on 
another occasion, he observes : " Of all kinds of ambition, as 
things are now circumstanced, perhaps that which pursues 
poetical fame is the wildest. What from the increased refine- 
ment of the times, from the diversity of judgment produced 
by opposing systems of criticism, and from the more prevalent 
divisions of opinion influenced by party, the strongest and 
happiest efforts can expect to please but in a very narrow 
circle." ^ 

iFrom the dedication to the first edition of Tlie Traveller. 



106 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

At this very time he had by him his poem of " The Trav- 
eller." The plan of it, as has already been observed, was con- 
i^-Vceived many years before, during his travels in Switzerland, and 
a slietch of it sent from that country to his brother Henry in 
Ireland. The original outline is said to have embraced a wider 
scope ; but it was probably contracted through diffidence, in 
the process of finishing the parts. It had laid by him for 
several years in a crude state, and it was with extreme hesita- 
tion and after much revision that he at length submitted it to 
Dr. Johnson. The frank and warm approbation of the latter 
encouraged him to finish it for the press ; and Dr. Johnson 
himself contributed a few lines towards the conclusion. 

We hear much about " poetic inspiration," and the " poet's 
eye in a fine phrensy rolling " ; but Sir Joshua Reynolds gives 
an anecdote of Goldsmith while engaged upon his poem, calcu- 
lated to cure our notions about the ardor of composition. Call- 
ing upon the poet one day, he opened the door without 
ceremony, and found him in the double occupation of turning a 
couplet and teaching a pet dog to sit upon his haunches. At 
one time he would glance his eye at his desk, and at another 
shake his finger at the dog to make him retain his position. 
The last lines on the page were still wet ; they form a part of 
the description of Italy : 

" By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, 
The sports of children satisfy the child." 

Goldsmith, with his usual good-humor, joined in the laugh 
caused by his whimsical employment, and acknowledged that 
his boyish sport with the dog suggested the stanza. 

The poem was published on the 19th of December, 1764, 
in a quarto form, by Newbery, and was the first of his works 
to which Goldsmith prefixed his name. As a testimony of 
cherished and well-merited affection, he dedicated it to his 
brother Henry. There is an amusing affectation of indifference 
as to its fate expressed in the dedication. "What reception a 
poem may find," says he, "which has neither abuse, party, nor 
blank verse to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I solicitous to 
know." The truth is, no one was more emulous and anxious 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 107 

for poetic fame ; and never was he more anxious than in the 
present instance, for it was his grand stake. Dr. Johnson 
aided the launching of the poem by a favorable notice in the 
Critical Review ; other periodical works came out in its favor. 
Some of the author's friends complained that it did not com- 
mand instant and wide popularity ; that it was a poem to win, 
not to strike : it went on rapidly increasing in favor ; in three 
months a second edition was issued ; shortly afterwards, a third ; 
then a fourth ; and, before the year was out, the author was 
pronounced the best poet of his time. 

The appearance of " The Traveller " at once altered Gold- 
smith's intellectual standing in the estimation of society ; but 
its effect upon the club, if we may judge from the account given 
by Hawkins, was almost ludicrous. They were lost in astonish- 
ment that a "newspaper essayist" and "bookseller's drudge" 
should have written such a poem. On the evening of its an- 
nouncement to them Goldsmith had gone away early, after 
" rattling away as usual," and they knew not how to reconcile 
his heedless garrulity with the serene beauty, the easy grace, 
the sound good sense, and the occasional elevation of his poetry. 
They could scarcely believe that such magic numbers had flowed 
from a man to whom in general, says Johnson, " it was with dif- 
ficulty they could give a hearing." " Well," exclaimed Chamier, 
" I do believe he wrote this poem himself, and let me tell you, 
that is believing a great deal." 

At the next meeting of the club, Chamier sounded the author 
a little about his poem. " Mr. Goldsmith," said he, " what 
do you mean by the last word in the first line of your ' Travel- 
ler,' 'remote, unfriended, melancholy, dow^ ? do you mean 
tardiness of locomotion ? " — " Yes," replied Goldsmith, incon- 
siderately, being probably flurried at the moment. "No, sir," 
interposed his protecting friend Johnson, "you did not mean 
tardiness of locomotion ; you meant that sluggishness of mind 
which comes upon a man in solitude." — "Ah," exclaimed 
Goldsmith, ''''that was what I meant." Chamier immediately 
believed that Johnson himself had written the line, and a 
rumor became prevalent that he was the author of many of the 
finest passages. This was ultimately set at rest by Johnson 
himself, who marked with a pencil all the verses he had con- 



108 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

tributed, nine in number, inserted towards the conclusion, and 
by no means the best in the poem. He moreover, with gener- 
ous warmth, pronounced it the finest poem that had appeared 
since the days of Pope. 

But one of the highest testimonials to the charm of the poem 
was given by Miss Reynolds, who had toasted poor Goldsmith 
as the ugliest man of her acquaintance. Shortly after the 
api)earance of " The Traveller," Dr. Johnson read it aloud from 
beginning to end in her presence. " Well," exclaimed she, when 
he had finished, " I never more shall think Dr. Goldsmith 
ugly ! " 

On another occasion, when the merits of " The Traveller " 
were discussed at Reynolds's board, Langton declared " there 
was not a bad line in the poem, not one of Dry den's careless 
verses." " I was glad," observed Reynolds, " to hear Charles 
Fox say it was one of the finest poems in the English lan- 
guage." "Why was you glad?" rejoined Langton, "you 
surely had no doubt of this before." " No," interposed John- 
son, decisively ; " the merit of ' The Traveller' is so well estab- 
lished that Mr. Fox's praise cannot augment it, nor his censure 
diminish it." 

Boswell, who was absent from England at the time of the 
publication of " The Traveller," was astonished, on his return, 
to find Goldsmith, whom he had so much undervalued, sud- 
denly elevated almost to a par with his idol. He accounted 
for it by concluding that much, both of the sentiments and ex- 
pression of the poem, had been derived from conversations with 
Johnson. "He imitates you, sir," said this incarnation of 
toadyism. "Why no, sir," replied Johnson, "JackHawkes- 
worth is one of my imitators, but not Goldsmith. Goldy, sir, 
has great merit." " But, sir, he is much indebted to you for 
his getting so high in the public estimation." "Why, sir, he 
has, perhaps, got sooner to it by his intimacy with me." 

The poem went through several editions in the course of the 
first year, and received some few additions and corrections from 
the author's pen. It produced a golden harvest to Mr. New- 
bery, but all the remuneration on record, doled out by his nig- 
gard hand to the author, was twenty guineas ! 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 109 



CHAPTER XVI 

New lodgings — Johnson's compliment — A titled patron — The poet at 
Northumberland House — His independence of the great — The 
Countess of Northumberland — Edwin and Angelina — Gosford 
and Lord Clare — Publication of Essays — Evils of a rising repu- 
tation — Hangers-on — Job writing — Goody Two Shoes — A medi- 
cal campaign — Mrs. Sidebotham 

Goldsmith, now that he was rising in the world, and be- 
coming a notoriety, felt himself called upon to improve his style 
of living. He accordingly emerged from Wine-Office Court, and 
took chambers in the Temple. It is true they were but of 
humble pretensions, situated on what was then the library stair- 
case, and it would appear that he was a kind of inmate with 
Jeffs, tlie butler of the society. Still he was in the Temple, 
that classic region rendered famous by the Spectator and other 
essayists, as the abode of gay wits and thoughtful men of letters ; 
and which, with its retired courts and embowered gardens, in the 
very heart of a noisy metropolis, is, to the quiet-seeking student 
and author, an oasis freshening with verdure in the midst of a 
desert. Johnson, who had become a kind of growling supervisor 
of the poet's affairs, paid him a visit soon after he had installed 
himself in his new quarters, and went prying about the apart- 
ment, in his near-sighted manner, examining every thing mi- 
nutely. Goldsmith was fidgeted by this curious scrutiny, and 
apprehending a disposition to find fault, exclaimed, with the 
air of a man who had money in both pockets, " I shall soon be 
in better chambers than these." The harmless bravado drew a 
reply from Johnson, which touched the chord of proper pride. 
"Nay, sir," said he, "never mind that. Nil te qusesiveris ex- 
tra" — implying that his reputation rendered him independent 
of outward show. Happy would it have been for poor Gold- 
smith, could he have kept this consolatory compliment perpet- 
ually in mind, and squared his expenses accordingly. 

Among the persons of rank who were struck with the merits 
of " The Traveller " was the Earl (afterwards Duke) of Northum- 
berland. He procured several other of Goldsmith's writings, 
the perusal of which tended to elevate the author in his good 
opinion, and to gain for him his good will. The earl held the 



110 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and understanding Gold- 
smith was an Irishman, was disposed to extend to him the 
patronage which his high post afforded. He intimated the 
same to his relative, Dr. Percy, who, he found, was well ac- 
quainted with the poet, and expressed a wish that the latter 
should wait upon him. Here, then, was another opportunity 
for Goldsmith to better his fortune, had he been knowing and 
worldly enough to profit by it. Unluckily the path to fortune 
lay through the aristocratical mazes of Northumberland House, 
and the poet blundered at the outset. The following is the 
account he used to give of his visit : — "I dressed myself in the 
best manner I could, and, after studying some compliments I 
thought necessary on such an occasion, proceeded to Northumber- 
land House, and acquainted the servants that I had particular 
business with the duke. They showed me into an antechamber, 
where, after waiting some time, a gentleman, very elegantly 
dressed, made his appearance : taking him for the duke, I de- 
livered all the fine things I had composed in order to compli- 
ment him on the honor he had done me ; when, to my great 
astonishment, he told me I had mistaken him for his master, 
who would see me immediately. At that instant the duke came 
into the apartment, and I was so confounded on the occasion, 
that I wanted words barely sufficient to express the sense I 
entertained of the duke's politeness, and went away exceedingly 
chagrined at the blunder I had committed." 

Sir John Hawkins, in his " Life of Dr. Johnson," gives some 
farther particulars of this visit, of which he was, in part, a 
witness. " Having one day," says he, "a call to make on the 
late Duke, then Earl, of Northumberland, I found Goldsmith 
waiting for an audience in an outer room : I asked him what 
had brought him there ; he told me, an invitation from his lord- 
ship. I made my business as short as I could, and, as a reason, 
mentioned that Dr. Goldsmith was waiting without. The earl 
asked me if I was acquainted with him. I told him that 
I was, adding what I thought was most likely to recommend 
him. I retired, and stayed in the outer room to take him home. 
Upon his coming out, I asked him the result of his conversation. 
' His lordship,' said he, ' told me he had read my poem, mean- 
ing " The Traveller," and was much delighted with it ; that he 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 111 

was going to be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and that hearing I 
was a native of that country, he should be glad to do me any 
kindness.' 'And what did you answer,' said I, 'to this gra- 
cious offer? ' ' Why,' said he, ' I could say nothing but that I 
had a brother there, a clergyman, that stood in need of help : 
as for myself, I have no great dependence on the promises of 
great men ; I look to the booksellers for support ; they are my 
best friends, and I am not inclined to forsake them for others.' " 
"Thus," continues Sir John, "did this idiot in the affairs of 
the world trifle with his fortunes, and put back the hand that 
was held out to assist him." 

We cannot join with Sir John in his worldly sneer at the 
conduct of Goldsmith on this occasion. While we admire that 
honest independence of spirit which prevented him from asking 
favors for himself, we love that warmth of affection which in- 
stantly sought to advance the fortunes of a brother : but the 
peculiar merits of poor Goldsmith seem to have been little 
understood by the Hawkinses, the Boswells, and the other 
biographers of the day. 

After all, the introduction to Northumberland House did not 
prove so complete a failure as the humorous account given by 
Goldsmith, and the cynical account given by Sir John Hawkins, 
might lead one to suppose. Dr. Percy, the heir male of the 
ancient Percys, brought the poet into the acquaintance of his 
kinswoman, the countess; who, before her marriage with the 
earl, was in her own right heiress of the House of Northumber- 
land. "She was a lady," says Boswell, "not only of high 
dignity of spirit, such as became her noble blood, but of excel- 
lent understanding and lively talents." Under her auspices a 
poem of Goldsmith's had an aristocrat] cal introduction to the 
world. This was the beautiful ballad of the "Hermit,"^ origi- 
nally published under the name of "Edwin and Angelina." It 
was suggested by an old English ballad beginning " Gentle 
herdsman," shown him by Dr. Percy, who was at that time 
making his famous collection, entitled " Reliques of Ancient 
English Poetry," which he submitted to the inspection of Gold- 
smith prior to publication. A few copies only of the " Hermit " 
were printed at first, with the following title-page : " Edwin and 

1 Now printed in Chap, viii., Vicar of Wakefield. 



112 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Angelina : a Ballad. By Mr. Goldsmith. Printed for the 
Amusement of the Countess of Northumberland." 

All this, though it may not have been attended with any 
immediate pecuniary advantage, contributed to give Gold- 
smith's name and poetry the high stamp of fashion, so potent 
in England : the circle at Northumberland House, however, 
was of too stately and aristocratical a nature to be much to 
his taste, and we do not find that he became familiar in it. 

He was much more at home at Gosford, the noble seat of 
his countryman, Robert Nugent, afterwards Baron Nugent and 
Viscount Clare, who appreciated his merits even more heartily 
than the Earl of Northumberland, and occasionally made him 
his guest both in town and country. Nugent is described as a 
jovial voluptuary, who left the Roman Catholic for the Protes- 
tant religion, with a view to bettering his fortunes ; he had an 
Irishman's inclination for rich widows, and an Irishman's luck 
with the sex ; having been thrice married, and gained a fortune 
with each wife. He was now nearly sixty, with a remarkably 
loud voice, broad Irish brogue, and ready, but somewhat coarse 
wit. With all his occasional coarseness he was capable of high 
thought, and had produced poems which showed a truly poetic 
vein. He was long a member of the House of Commons, where 
his ready wit, his fearless decision, and good-humored audacity 
of expression, always gained him a hearing, though his tall 
person and awkward manner gained him the nickname of 
Squire Gawky, among the political scribblers of the day. With 
a patron of this jovial temperament. Goldsmith probably felt 
more at ease than with those of higher refinement. 

The celebrity which Goldsmith had acquired by his poem 
of " The Traveller," occasioned a resuscitation of many of his 
miscellaneous and anonymous tales and essays from the various 
newspapers and other transient publications in which they 
lay dormant. These he published in 1765, in a collected form, 
under the title of " Essays by Mr. Goldsmith." " The follow- 
ing Essays," observes he in his preface, "have already appeared 
at different times, and in different publications. The pam- 
phlets in which they were inserted being generally unsuccessful, 
these shared tlie common fate, without assisting the book- 
sellers' aims, or extending the author's reputation. The public 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 113 

were too strenuously employed with their own follies to be 
assiduous in estimating mine; so that many of my best at- 
tempts in this way have fallen victims to the transient topic 
of the times — the Ghost in Cock-Lane, or the Siege of Ticon- 
deroga. 

" But, though they have, passed pretty silently into the 
world, I can by no means complain of their circulation. The 
magazines and papers of the day have indeed been liberal 
enough in this respect. Most of these essays have been 
regiitarly reprinted twice or thrice a year, and conveyed to 
the public through the kennel of some engaging compilation. 
If there be a pride in multiplied editions, I have seen some of 
my labors sixteen times reprinted, and claimed by different 
parents as their own. I have seen them flourished at the 
beginning with praise, and signed at the end with the names 
of Philautos, Philalethes, Phileleutheros, and Philanthropes. 
It is time, however, at last to vindicate my claims ; and as 
these entertainers of the public, as they call themselves, have 
partly lived upon me for some years, let me now try if I cannot 
live a little upon myself" 

It was but little, in fact, for all the pecuniary emolument he 
received from the volume was twenty guineas. It had a good 
circulation, however, was translated into French, and has main- 
tained its stand among the British classics. 

Notwithstanding that the reputation of Goldsmith had 
greatly risen, his finances were often at a very low ebb, owing to 
his heedlessness as to expense, his liability to be imposed upon, 
and a spontaneous and irresistible propensity to give to every 
one who asked. The very rise in his reputation had increased 
these embarrassments. It had enlarged his circle of needy 
acquaintances, authors poorer in pocket than himself, who came 
in search of literary counsel ; which generally meant a guinea 
and a breakfast. And then his Irish hangers-on! "Our 
Doctor," said one of these sponges, " had a constant levee of 
his distressed countrymen, whose wants, as far as he was able, 
he always relieved ; and he has often been known to leave him- 
self without a guinea, in order to supply the necessities of 
others." 

This constant drainage of the purse therefore obliged him to 



114 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

undertake all jobs proposed by the booksellers, and to keep up 
a kind of running account with Mr. Newbery ; who was his 
banker on all occasions, sometimes for pounds, sometimes for 
shillings ; but who was a rigid accountant, and took care to be 
amply repaid in manuscript. Many effusions, hastily penned 
in these moments of exigency, were published anonymously, 
and never claimed. Some of them have but recently been 
traced to his pen ; while of many the true authorship will 
probably never be discovered. Among others, it is suggested, 
and with great probability, that he wrote for Mr. Newbery the 
famous nursery story of " Goody Two Shoes," which appeared 
in 1765, at a moment when Goldsmith was scribbling for 
Newbery, and much pressed for funds. Several quaint little 
tales introduced in his " Essays " show that he had a turn for 
this species of mock history ; and the advertisement and title- 
page bear the stamp of his sly and playful humor. 

" We are desired to give notice, that there is in the press, 
and speedily will be published, either by subscription or other- 
wise, as the public shall please to determine, the History of 
Little Goody Two Shoes, otherwise Mrs. Margery Two Shoes ; 
with the means by which she acquired learning and wisdom, 
and, in consequence thereof, her estate; set forth at large for 
the benefit of those 

" Who, from a state of rags and care, 
And having shoes but half a pair, 
Their fortune and their fame should fix, 
And gallop in a coach and six." 

The world is probably not aware of the ingenuity, humor, 
good sense, and sly satire contained in many of the old English 
nursery-tales. They have evidently been the sportive produc- 
tions of able writers, who would not trust their names to pro- 
ductions that might be considered beneath their dignity. The 
ponderous works on which they relied for immortality have per- 
haps sunk into oblivion, and carried their names down with 
them ; while their unacknowledged offspring. Jack the Giant 
Killer, Giles Gingerbread, and Tom Thumb, flourish in wide- 
spreading and never-ceasing popularity. 

As Goldsmith had now acquired popularity and an extensive 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 115 

acquaintance, he attempted, with the advice of his friends, to 
procure a more regular and ample support by resuming the 
medical profession. He accordingly launched himself upon tlie 
town in style ; hired a man-servant ; replenished his wardrobe 
at considerable expense, and appeared in a professional wig and 
cane, purple silk small-clothes, and a scarlet roquelaiire but- 
toned to the chin : a fantastic garb, as we should think at the 
present day, but not unsuited to the fashion of the times. 

With his sturdy little person thus arrayed in the unusual 
magnificence of purple and fine linen, and his scarlet roquelaure 
flaunting from his shoulders, he used to strut into the apart- 
ments of his patients swaying his three-cornered hat in one 
hand and his medical sceptre, the cane, in the other, and assum- 
ing an air of gravity and importance suited to the solemnity of 
his wig ; at least, such is the picture given of lum by the 
waiting gentlewoman who let him into the chamber of one of 
his lady patients. 

He soon, however, grew tired and impatient of the duties 
and restraints of his profession ; his practice was chiefly among 
his friends, and the fees were not sufficient for his maintenance ; 
he was disgusted with attendance on sick-chambers and capri- 
cious patients, and looked back with longing to his tavern haunts 
and broad convivial meetings, from which the dignity and duties 
of his medical calling restrained him. At length, on prescribing 
to a lady of his acquaintance who, to use a hackneyed phrase, 
"rejoiced" in the aristocratical name of Sidebotham, a warm 
dispute arose between him and the apothecary as to the quan- 
tity of medicine to be administered. The doctor stood up for 
the rights and dignities of his profession, and resented the 
interference of the compounder of drugs. His rights and dig- 
nities, however, were disregarded ; his wig and cane and scarlet 
roquelaure were of no avail ; Mrs. Sidebotham sided with the 
hero of the pestle and mortar ; and Goldsmith flung out of the 
house in a passion. " I am determined henceforth," said he to 
Topham Beauclerc, " to leave off prescribing for friends." " Do 
so, my dear doctor," was the reply ; " whenever you undertake 
to kill, let it be only your enemies." 

This was the end of Goldsmith's medical career. 



116 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



CHAPTER XVII 

Publication of the Vicar of Wakefield; opinions concerning it ; of Dr. 
.lohnsoii ; of Rogers the poet ; of Goethe ; its merits — Exquisite ex- 
tract — Attack by Ken rick — Reply — Book-building — Project of a 
comedy 

The success of the poem of " The Traveller," and the popu- 
larity which it had conferred on its author, now roused the 
attention of the bookseller in whose hands the novel of the 
" Vicar of Wakefield," had been slumbering for nearly two long 
years. The idea has generally prevailed that it was Mr. John 
Newbery to whom the manuscript had been sold, and much 
surprise has been expressed that he should be insensible to its 
merit and suffer it to remain unpublished, while putting forth 
various inferior writings by the same author. This, however, 
is a mistake ; it was his nephew, Francis Newbery, who had 
become the fortunate purchaser. Still tlie delay is equally un- 
accountable. Some have imagined that the uncle and nephew 
had business arrangements together, in which this work was 
included, and that the elder Newbery, dubious of its success, 
retarded the publication until the full harvest of " The Trav- 
eller" should be reaped. Booksellers are prone to make 
egregious mistakes as to the merit of works in manuscript ; 
and to undervalue, if not reject, those of classic and enduring 
excellence, when destitute of that false brilliancy commonly 
called " effect." In the present instance, an intellect vastly 
superior to that of either of the booksellers was equally at 
fault. Dr. Johnson, speaking of the work to Boswell, some 
time subsequent to its publication, observed, " I myself did not 
think it would have had much success. It was written and 
sold to a bookseller before ' The Traveller,' but published after, 
so little expectation had the bookseller from it. Had it been 
sold after ' The Traveller,' he might have had twice as much 
money ; though sixty guineas ivas no mean jtrice^ 

Sixty guineas for the " Vicar of Wakefield" ! and this could 
be pronounced no mean 'price by Dr. Jolinson, at that time the 
arbiter of British talent, and who had had an opportunity of 
witnessing the effect of the work upon the public mind ; for its 
success was immediate. It came out on the 27 th of March, 



<n,i vioi: (XM.DHMrrii I 17 

1700 ; boforo Mm vwd (d* IVIny n hck^oikI cditioii vvjiw called lor ; 
ill tIlT'<H^ iiKiiilJiK iii()r(\ ii lliird ; imhI mo it, went on, vvidciiin;' in 
tl |K)|niljuil.y Miii.1/ luiH never ll!i;^|;(id. |{.();;('IH, llie Nentor nl' 
HriiiHli litcniliirc, wlioHe relincd purity oC Ijud.e ntid (iX((iiiMil(i 
inoiit/til oi'^aiii/iitioii {'(Mideicd liiin (^niinenlly ciileidaiiMl lo 
n.))|)r('ci;iie n, work oi' IIh^ kind, dcrl.'tred tliiii of all IJie ImokM, 
vvliifli iJiroii;.';!' •Iin liU'id (•Ii;ui;.';('H of Unce ^viierjd ioiiH lie had 
Hcc.ii \'\Hv. n\u\ laJI, Uie (^liarni of I.Iki " Vicar of W»ik(^licld " iiiid 
aJonc conl-iniicd a,M a,!, lin-tt ; juid (tnidd lie rcvinil. (he world nlh'V 
a-trintervnJ of iiuMiy more /^ciieraiioiiH, Imi Hlioidd an Hiirely look 
to find it uiidiiiiiiilHlied. Nor Iuih Wh ci^lelnil y heen coiiliiKMl to 
(Jrenl, Ilril.aiii. 'IMioii/^li ho excliiHively a, picliii'e of llrilJHli 
HceiicH and niaJinerw, il< lia.H IxMiii (.ra.nMhi,l-<'d into aInioMl. every 
laii^napfe, and ev<"ry where it,H (iliariii lm,H Imiti Mie Maine. 
(ioelJu^, the ^\v:\i j.^(;ninH of (ierinaiiy, d(M'la,red in liiH ei^ddy 
lifHl. y<'a,r, l-lia,l- il- wa-H hii-i deli/^dd, at l.li(i a^(5 of twenty, that it 
had in a, manner formed a, part of Ihm edu(^a.tioti, iiifliMtnciti^ IiIh 
l,a,Hl-(i JUid f'eeliii;;'H l,liroii/..diont life, a,iid thai he had recently 
read il/ a^^aiii from iKijLjiiiiiin;^^ to (;iid with icik^wcmI (hili^ht, 
and with a ^nuteful H<^nHe of tlui early Ixitiefit derived from it. 

It in ne(M||(!HH t(» (!X|iatia.l-<i upon the (jua.lil-icw of a, work which 
liaH tliiiH pa,HHed IVttni (-ounl-ry to country, and laji;j;ua.;;<5 to Ian 
gua^i!, tiiiiil it ]n now known throiiji^hoiit the whole Kta^diiiiLC 
world a,nd in heconie a. liouHeli(»ld hook in (ivery hand. The 
H(!(;rel of itn tiniv(M'MaJ and (tnduriii^ popiihuity in utidoulitedly 
itM truth to nature, iatt to nature of the inoHt airdahh; kind ; to 
natiir(5 hucIi a,H (ioldHinith Haw it, 'IMie a,iithor, an we- ha,ve 
oe(;aHionally mIiowii in thi^ courne of thin memoir, took hin HttcncH 
and characl-eiH in tluH, a,H in hin otlntr writin^H, from ori;(inalH 
in hin own motley experienc(5 ; hut Im» Inm ^"jiven them an Hcen 
throu;;'li tin; iiKMiium of hin own indul|.(ent (tye, and lian net them 
forth with th(! <5oloriny:H of hin own ^iHn\ liea,d and hea-rt. Yet 
how (tord-ra,dicl,ory itHceniH tlia,t thin, oimi of tim moHt (hdi^^htful 
pictureH of lionn; and homefelt happiiK^KH, hIiouM he diawn hy a 
}iomel(;HH man ; that the moHt a.miaJ)le picture of dotncHtic virtue 
and all the eiidea,rinentM of the ma,rri(ul Hta,t(5 nhoidd he drawn 
])y a lia,chelor, who had been Hc-ve-red fr(»m dotiMwtic life almont 
froni boyhood ; that one of the mont teiide-r, toiichin/jf and 
ttirccting ttppealu on hehaJf of female lovelinciH, nhould have 



118 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

been made by a man whose deficiency in all the graces of per- 
son and manner seemed to mark him out for a cynical dispar- 
ager of the sex. 

We cannot refrain from transcribing from the work a short 
passage illustrative of what we have said, and which within a 
wonderfully small compass comprises a world of beauty of 
imagery, tenderness of feeling, delicacy and refinement of 
thought, and matchless purity of style. The two stanzas 
which conclude it, in which are told a whole history of woman's 
wrongs and sufferings, is, for pathos, simplicity, and euphony, a 
gem in the language. The scene depicted is where the poor 
Vicar is gathering around him the wrecks of his shattered 
family, and endeavoring to rally them back to happiness. 

" The next morning the sun arose with peculiar warmth for 
the season, so that we agreed to breakfast together on the 
honeysuckle bank ; where, while we sat, my youngest daughter 
at my request joined her voice to the concert on the trees about 
us. It was in this place my poor Olivia first met her seducer, 
and every object served to recall her sadness. But that melan- 
choly which is excited by objects of pleasure, or inspired by 
sounds of harmony, soothes the heart instead of corroding it. 
Her mother, too, upon this occasion, felt a pleasing distress, and 
wept, and loved her daughter as before. ' Do, my pretty 
Olivia,' cried she, ' let us have that melancholy air your father 
was so fond of ; your sister Sophy has already obliged us. Do, 
child, it will please your old father.' She complied in a man- 
ner so exquisitely pathetic as moved me. 

" ' When lovely woman stoops to folly, 
And finds too late that men betray, 
What charm can soothe her melancholy, 
What art can wash her guilt aWay ? 

" ' The only art her guilt to cover, 

To hide her shame from every eye, 
To give repentance to her lover, 

And wring his bosom — is to die.' " i 

Scarce had the " Vicar of Wakefield " made its appearance 
and been received with acclamation, than its author was sub- 

1 Vicar of Wakefield, Chap. xxiv. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 119 

jected to one of the usual penalties that attend success. He 
was attacked in the newspapers. In one of the chapters he 
had introduced his ballad of the " Hermit," of which, as we 
have mentioned, a few copies had been printed some consider- 
able time previously for the use of the Countess of Northum- 
berland. This brought forth the following article in a 
fashionable journal of the day : 

" To the Printer of the St. James's Chronicle. 

'• SiE, — In the 'Reliques of Ancient Poetry,' published 
about two years ago, is a very beautiful little ballad, called 
'A Friar of Orders Gray.' The ingenious editor, Mr. Percy, 
supposes that the stanzas sung by Ophelia in the play of 
' Hamlet ' were parts of some ballad well known in Shak- 
speare's time, and from these stanzas, with the addition of one 
or two of his own to connect them, he has formed the above- 
mentioned ballad ; the subject of which is, a lady comes to a 
convent to inquire for her love who had been driven there by 
her disdain. She is answered by a friar that he is dead : 

" ' No, no, he is dead, gone to his death's bed. 
lie never will come again.' 

The lady weeps and laments lier crtielty ; the friar endeavors 
to comfort her with morality and religion, but all in vain ; she 
expresses the deepest grief and the most tender sentiments of 
love, till at last the friar discovers himself: 

" ' And lo ! beneath this gown of gray 
Thy own true love appears.' 

" This catastrophe is very fine, and the whole, joined with 
the greatest tenderness, has the greatest simplicity ; yet, 
though this ballad was so recently published in the ' Ancient 
Reliques,' Dr. Goldsmith has been hardy enough to publish a 
poem called ' The Hermit,' where the circumstances and 
catastrophe are exactly the same, only with this difference, 
that the natural simplicity and tenderness of the original are 
almost entirely lost in the languid smoothness and tedious 



120 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

paraphrase of the copy, which is as short of the merits of Mr. 
Percy's ballad as the insipidity of negus is to the genuine 
flavor of champagne. 

" I am, sir, yours, &c., 

"Detectoe." 

This attack, supposed to be by Goldsmith's constant per- 
secutor, the malignant Kenrick, drew from him the following 
note to the editor : 

" Sir, — As there is nothing I dislike so much as newspaper 
controversy, particularly upon trifles, permit me to be as 
concise as possible in informing a correspondent of yours that I 
recommended Blainville's ' Travels ' because I thought the 
book was a good one ; and I still think so. I said I was told 
by the bookseller that it was then first published ; but in that 
it seems I was misinformed, and my reading was not extensive 
enough to set me right. 

"Another correspondent of yours accuses me of having 
taken a ballad I published some time ago, from one of the 
ingenious Mr. Percy. I do not think there is any great 
resemblance between the two pieces in question. If there 
be any, his ballad was taken from mine. I read it to Mr. 
Percy some years ago ; and he, as we both considered these 
things as trifles at best, told me, with his usual good-humor, 
the next time I saw him, that he had taken my plan to form 
the fragments of Shakspeare into a ballad of his own. He 
then read me his little Cento, if I may so call it, and I highly 
approved it. Such petty anecdotes as these are scarcely worth 
printing ; and, were it not for the busy disposition of some of 
your correspondents, the public should never have known that 
he owes me the hint of his ballad, or that I am obliged to his 
friendship and learning for communications of a much more 
important nature. 

"I am, sir, yours, &c., 

"Oliver Goldsmith." 

The unexpected circulation of the "Vicar of Wakefield" 
enriched the publisher, but not the author. Goldsmith no 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 121 

doubt thought himself entitled to participate in the profits of 
the repeated editions ; and a memorandum, still extant, shows 
that he drew upon Mr. Francis Newbery, in the month of 
June, for fifteen guineas, but that the bill was returned dis- 
honored. He continued, therefore, his usual job-work for the 
booksellers, writing introductions, prefaces, and head and tail 
pieces for new works ; revising, touching up, and modifying 
travels and voyages ; making compilations of prose and poetry, 
and " building books," as he sportively termed it. These tasks 
required little labor or talent, but that taste and touch which 
are the magic of gifted minds. His terms began to be propor- 
tioned to his celebrity. If his price was at any time objected 
to, "Why, sir," he would say, "it may seem large; but then 
a man may be many years working in obscurity before his taste 
and reputation are fixed or estimated ; and then he is, as in 
other professions, only paid for his previous labors." 

He was, however, prepared to try his fortune in a different 
walk of literature from any he had yet attempted. We have 
repeatedly adverted to his fondness for the drama ; he was a 
frequent attendant at the theatres ; though, as we have shown, 
he considered them under gross mismanagement. He thought, 
too, that a vicious taste prevailed among those who wrote for 
the stage. "A new species of dramatic composition," says he, 
in one of his essays, " has been introduced under the name of 
sentimental comedy, in which the virtues of private life are 
exhibited rather than the vices exposed; and the distresses 
rather than the faults of mankind make our interest in the 
piece. In these plays almost all the characters are good, and 
exceedingly generous; they are lavish enough of their tin 
money on the stage ; and though they want humor, have 
abundance of sentiment and feeling. If they happen to have 
faults or foibles, the spectator is taught not only to pardon, 
but to applaud them in consideration of the goodness of their 
hearts ; so that folly, instead of being ridiculed, is commended, 
and the comedy aims at touching our passions, without the 
power of being truly pathetic. In this manner we are likely 
to lose one great source of entertainment on the stage ; for 
while the comic poet is invading the province of the tragic 
Muse, he leaves her lively sister quite neglected. Of this. 



122 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

however, he is no ways solicitous, as he measures his fame by 
his profits. . . . 

"Humor at present seems to be departing from the stage; 
and it will soon happen that our comic players will have 
nothing left for it but a fine coat and a song. It depends 
upon the audience whether they will actually drive those poor 
merry creatures from the stage, or sit at a play as gloomy as 
at the tabernacle. It is not easy to recover an art when once 
lost ; and it will be a just punishment, that when, by our being 
too fastidious, we have banished humor from the stage, we 
should ourselves be deprived of the art of laughing."^ 

Symptoms of reform in the drama had recently taken place. 
The comedy of the " Clandestine Marriage," the joint produc- 
tion of Colman and Garrick, and suggested by Hogarth's 
inimitable pictures of " Marriage k la mode," had taken the 
town by storm, crowded the theatre with fashionable audiences, 
and formed one of the leading literary topics of the year. 
Goldsmith's emulation was roused by its success. The comedy 
was in what he considered the legitimate line, totally different 
from the sentimental school ; it presented pictures of real life, 
delineations of character and touches of humor, in which he 
felt himself calculated to excel. The consequence was, that in 
the course of this year (1766), he commenced a comedy of the 
same class, to be entitled the " Good Natured Man," at which 
he diligently wrought whenever the hurried occupation of 
*' book-building " allowed him leisure. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Social position of Goldsmith ; his colloquial contests with Johnson 
— Anecdotes and illustrations 

The social position of Goldsmith had undergone a material 
change since the publication of " The Traveller." Before that 
event he was but partially known as the author of some clever 
anonymous writings, and had been a tolerated member of the 
club and the Johnson circle, without much being expected from 

1 UnacJc7ioivledgecl essays, No. xxvii. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 123 

him. Now he had suddenly risen to literary fame, and become 
one of the lions of the day. The highest regions of intellectual 
society were now open to liim ; but he was not prepared to 
move in them with confidence and success. Ballymahon had 
not been a good school of manners at the outset of life ; nor 
had his experience as a " poor student " at colleges and medical 
schools contributed to give him the polish of society. He had 
brought from Ireland, as he said, nothing but his " brogue and 
his blunders," and they had never left him. He had travelled, 
it is'true ; but the Continental tour which in those days gave 
the finishing grace to the education of a patrician youth, had, 
with poor Goldsmith, been little better than a course of literary 
vagabondizing. It had enriched his mind, deepened and 
widened the benevolence of his heart, and filled his memory 
with enchanting pictures, but it had contributed little to dis- 
ciplining him for the polite intercourse of the world. His life 
in London had hitherto been a struggle with sordid cares and 
sad humiliations. " You scarcely can conceive," wrote he some 
time previously to his brother, " how much eight years of dis- 
appointment, anguish, and study have worn me down." Sev- 
eral more years had since been added to the term during which 
he had trod the lowly walks of life. He had been a tutor, an 
apothecary's drudge, a petty physician of the suburbs, a book- 
seller's hack, drudging for daily bread. Each separate walk 
had been beset by its peculiar thorns and humiliations. It is 
wonderful how his heart retained its gentleness and kindness 
through all these trials ; how his mind rose above the " mean- 
nesses of poverty," to which, as he says, he was compelled to 
submit ; but it would be still more wonderful, had his manners 
acquired a tone corresponding to the innate grace and refine- 
ment of his intellect. He was near forty years of age when he 
published " The Traveller," and was lifted by it into celebrity. 
As is beautifully said of him by one of his biographers, "he 
has fought his way to consideration and esteem ; but he bears 
upon him the scars of his twelve years' conflict ; of the mean 
sorrows through which he has passed ; and of the cheap indul- 
gences he has sought relief and help from. There is nothing 
plastic in his nature now. His manners and habits are com- 
pletely formed; and in them any further success can make 



124 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

little favorable change, whatever it may effect for his mind or 
genius."^ 

We are not to be surprised, therefore, at finding him make 
an awkward figure in the elegant drawing-rooms which were 
now open to him, and disappointing those who had formed an 
idea of him from the fascinating ease and gracefulness of his 
poetry. 

Even the Literary Club, and the circle of which it formed a 
part, after their surprise at the intellectual flights of which he 
showed himself capable, fell into a conventional mode of 
judging and talking of him, and of placing him in absurd and 
whimsical points of view. His very celebrity operated here to 
his disadvantage. It brought him into continual comparison 
with Johnson, who was the oracle of that circle and had given it 
a tone. Conversation was the great staple there, and of this 
Johnson was a master. He had been a reader and thinker 
from childhood : his melancholy temperament, which unfitted 
him for the pleasures of youth, had made him so. For many 
years past the vast variety of works he had been obliged to 
consult in preparing his " Dictionary," had stored an uncom- 
monly retentive memory with facts on all kinds of subjects ; 
making it a perfect colloquial armory. " He had all his life," 
says Boswell, " habituated himself to consider conversation as 
a trial of intellectual vigor and skill. He had disciplined 
himself as a talker as well as a writer, making it a rule to 
impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could 
put it in, so that by constant practice and never suffering any 
careless expression to escape him, he had attained an extraor- 
dinary accuracy and command of language." 

His common conversation in all companies, according to Sir 
Joshua Keynolds, was such as to secure him universal atten- 
tion, something above the usual colloquial style being always 
expected from him. 

" I do not care," said Orme, the historian of Hindostan, " on 
what subject Johnson talks ; but I love better to hear him 
talk than any body. He either gives you new thoughts or a 
new coloring." 

A stronger and more graphic eulogium is given by Dr. Percy. 

1 Forster's Goldsmith. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 125 

"The conversation of Johnson," says he, "is strong and clear, 
and may be compared to an antique statue, where every vein 
and muscle is distinct and clear." 

Such was the colloquial giant with which Goldsmith's celeb- 
rity and his habits of intimacy brought him into continual 
comparison ; can we wonder that he should appear to disad- 
vantage? Conversation grave, discursive, and disputatious, 
such as Johnson excelled and delighted in, was to him a severe 
task, and he never was good at a task of any kind. He had 
not,4ike Johnson, a vast fund of acquired facts to draw upon ; 
nor a retentive memory to furnish them forth when wanted. 
He could not, like the great lexicographer, mould his ideas 
and balance his periods while talking. He had a flow of ideas, 
but it was apt to be hurried and confused, and as he said of 
himself, he had contracted a hesitating and disagreeable manner 
of speaking. He used to say that he always argued best 
when he argued alone ; that is to say, he could master a sub- 
ject in his study, with his pen in his hand ; but, when he came 
into company, he grew confused, and was unable to talk about 
it. Johnson made a remark concerning him to somewhat of 
the same purport. " No man," said he, " is more foolish than 
Goldsmith when he has not a pen in his hand, or more wise 
when he has." Yet with all this conscious deficiency he Avas 
continually getting involved in colloquial contests with John- 
son and other prime talkers of the literary circle. He felt that 
he had become a notoriety ; that he had entered the lists and 
was expected to make fight ; so with that heedlessness which 
characterized him in every thing else he dashed on at a ven- 
ture ; trusting to chance in this as in other things, and hoping 
occasionally to make a lucky hit. Johnson perceived his hap- 
hazard temerity, but gave him no credit for the real diflidence 
which lay at bottom. " The misfortune of Goldsmith in con- 
versation," said he, " is this, he goes on without knowing how 
he is to get off. His genius is great, but his knowledge is 
small. As they say of a generous man it is a pity he is not 
rich, we may say of Goldsmith it is a pity he is not knowing. 
He would not keep his knowledge to himself." And, on 
another occasion, he observes : " Goldsmith, rather than not 
talk, will talk of what he knows himself to be ignorant, which 



126 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

can only end in exposing him. If in company with two found- 
ers, he would fall a talking on. the method of making cannon, 
though both of them would soon see that he did not know what 
metal a cannon is made of." And again : " Goldsmith should 
not be for ever attempting to shine in conversation ; he has 
not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails. Sir, 
a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of chance ; 
a man may be beat at times by one who has not the tenth part 
of his wit. Now Goldsmith, putting himself against another, 
is like a man laying a hundred to one, who cannot spare the 
hundred. It is not worth a man's while. A man should not 
lay a hundred to one unless he can easily spare it, though he 
has a hundred chances for him ; he can get but a guinea, and 
he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this state. When he 
contends, if he gets the better, it is a very little addition to a 
man of his literary reputation ; if he does not get the better, he 
is miserably vexed." 

Johnson was not aware how much he was himself to blame 
in producing this vexation. " Goldsmith," said Miss Reynolds, 
"always appeared to be overawed by Johnson, particularly 
when in company with people of any consequence ; always as if 
impressed with fear of disgrace ; and indeed well he might. 
I have been witness to many mortifications he has suffered in 
Dr. Johnson's company." 

It may not have been disgrace that he feared, but rudeness. 
The great lexicographer, spoiled by the homage of society, was 
still more prone than himself to lose temper when the argu- 
ment went against him. He could not brook appearing to be 
worsted ; but would attempt to bear down his adversary by the 
rolling thunder of his periods ; and, when that failed, would 
become downright insulting. Boswell called it " having re- 
course to some sudden mode of robust sophistry " ; but Gold- 
smith designated it much more happily. " There is no arguing 
with Johnson," said he, '''' for^ ivhen his pistol misses fire, he 
knocks you down ivith the butt end ofit^^ 

1 The following is given by Boswell, as an instance of robust sophis- 
try : — " Once, when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, 
he stopped me thus — ' My dear Boswell, let's have no more of this ; 
you'll make nothing of it. I'd rather hear you whistle a Scotch 
tuue.'" 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 127 

111 several of the intellectual collisions recorded by Boswell 
as triumphs of Dr. Johnson, it really appears to us that Gold- 
smith had the best both of the wit and the argument, and 
especially of the courtesy and good-nature. 

On one occasion he certainly gave Johnson a capital reproof 
as to his own colloquial peculiarities. Talking of fables, Gold- 
smith observed that the animals introduced in them seldom 
talked in character. " For instance," said he, " the fable of 
the little fishes, who saw birds fly over their heads, and, envy- 
ing -them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The 
skill consists in making them talk like little fishes." Just 
then observing that Dr. Johnson was shaking his sides and 
laughing, he immediately added, "Why, Dr. Johnson, this is 
not so easy as you seem to think ; for, if you were to make 
little fishes talk, they would talk like whales." 

But though Goldsmith suffered frequent mortifications in 
society from the overbearing, and sometimes harsh, conduct of 
Johnson, he always did justice to his benevolence. When 
royal pensions were granted to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Shebbeare, 
a punster remarked, that the king had pensioned a she-hear 
and a he-hear; to which Goldsmith replied, "Johnson, to be 
sure, has a roughness in his manner, but no man alive has a 
more tender heart. He has nothing of the hear hut the skin." 

Goldsmith, in conversation, shone most when he least 
thought of shining ; when he gave up all efibrt to appear wise 
and learned, or to cope with the oracular sententiousness of 
Johnson, and gave way to his natural impulses. Even Bos- 
well could perceive his merits on these occasions. " For my 
part," said he, condescendingly, "I like very well to hear hon- 
est Goldsmith talk away carelessly ; " and many a much wiser 
man than Boswell delighted in those outpourings of a fertile 
fancy and a generous heart. In his happy moods. Goldsmith 
had an artless simplicity and buoyant good-humor, that led to 
a thousand amusing blunders and whimsical confessions, much 
to the entertainment of his intimates; yet, in his most thought- 
less garrulity, there was occasionally the gleam of the gold and 
the flash of the diamond. 



128 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



CHAPTER XIX 

Social resorts — The shilling whist club — A practical joke — The 
Wednesday club — The "tun of man" — The pig-butcher — Tom 
King — Hugh Kelly — Glover and his characteristics 

Though Goldsmith's pride and ambition led him to mingle 
occasionally with high society, and to engage in the colloquial 
conflicts of the learned circle, in both of which he was ill at 
ease and conscious of being undervalued, yet he had some social 
resorts in which he indemnified himself for their restraints by 
indulging his humor without control. One of them was a shil- 
ling whist club, which held its meetings at the Devil Tavern, 
near Temple Bar, a place rendered classic, we are told, by a 
club held there in old times, to which " rare Ben Jonson " had 
furnished the rules. The company was of a familiar, uncere- 
monious kind, delighting in that very questionable wit which 
consists in playing off practical jokes upon each other. Of one 
of these Goldsmith was made the butt. Coming to the club 
one night in a hackney coach, he gave the coachman by mis- 
take a guinea instead of a shilling, which he set down as a dead 
loss, for there was no likelihood, he said, that a fellow of this 
class would have the honesty to return the money. On the 
next club evening he was told a person at the street door 
wished to speak with him. He went forth but soon returned 
with a radiant countenance. To his surprise and delight the 
coachman had actually brought back the guinea. While he 
launched forth in praise of this unlooked-for piece of honesty, 
he declared it ought not to go unrewarded. Collecting a small 
sum from the club, and no doubt increasing it largely from his 
own purse, he dismissed the Jehu with ma'ny encomiums on his 
good conduct. He was still chanting his praises, when one of 
the club requested a sight of the guinea thus honestly returned. 
To Goldsmith's confusion it proved to be a counterfeit. The 
universal burst of laughter which succeeded, and the jokes by 
which he was assailed on every side, showed him that the 
whole was a hoax, and the pretended coachman as much a 
counterfeit as the guinea. He was so disconcerted, it is said, 
that he soon beat a retreat for the evening. 

Another of those free and easy clubs met on Wednesday 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 129 

evenings at the Globe Tavern in Fleet-street. It was some- 
what in the style of the Three Jolly Pigeons : songs, jokes, 
dramatic imitations, burlesque parodies, and broad sallies of 
humor, formed a contrast to the sententious morality, pedantic 
casuistry, and polished sarcasm of the learned circle. Here a 
huge "tun of man," by the name of Gordon, used to delight 
Goldsmith by singing the jovial song of Nottingham Ale, and 
looking like a butt of it. Here, too, a wealthy pig-butcher, 
charmed, no doubt, by the mild philanthropy of " The Trav- 
ellen^" aspired to be oq the most sociable footing with the 
author, and here was Tom King, the comedian, recently risen 
to consequence by his performance of Lord Ogleby in the new 
comedy of the " Clandestine Marriage." 

A member of more note was one Hugh Kelly, a second-rate 
author, who, as he became a kind of competitor of Goldsmith's, 
deserves particular mention. He was an Irishman, about 
twenty-eight years of age, originally apprenticed to a stay- 
maker in Dublin ; then writer to a London attorney ; then a 
Grub-street hack ; scribbling for magazines and newspapers. 
Of late he had set up for theatrical censor and satirist, and, 
in a poem called "Thespis," in emulation of Churchill's 
"Rosciad," had harassed many of the poor actors without 
mercy, and often without wit ; but had lavished his incense on 
Garrick, who, in consequence, took him into favor. He was 
the author of several works of superficial merit, but which had 
sufficient vogue to inflate his vanity. This, however, must 
have been mortified on his first introduction to Johnson ; after 
sitting a short time he got up to take leave, expressing a fear 
that a longer visit might be troublesome. " Not in the least, 
sir," said the surly moralist, " I had forgotten you were in the 
room." Johnson used to speak of him as a man who had writ- 
ten more than he had read. 

A prime wag of this club was one of Goldsmith's poor 
countrymen and hangers-on, by the name of Glover. He had 
originally been educated for the medical profession, but had 
taken in early life to the stage, though apparently without 
much success. While performing at Cork, he undertook, partly 
in jest, to restore life to the body of a malefactor, who had just 
been executed. To the astonishment of every one, himself 



130 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

among the number, he succeeded. The miracle took wind. He 
abandoned the stage, resumed the wig and cane, and considered 
his fortune as secure. Unluckily, there were not many dead 
people to be restored to life in Ireland ; his practice did not 
equal his expectation, so he came to London, where he con- 
tinued to dabble indifferently, and rather unprofitably, in physic 
and literature. 

He was a great frequenter of the Globe and Devil taverns, 
where he used to amuse the company by his talent at story- 
telling and his powers of mimicry, giving capital imitations of 
Garrick, Foote, Colman, Sterne, and other public characters of 
the day. He seldom happened to have money enough to pay 
his reckoning, but was always sure to find some ready purse 
among those who had been amused by his humors. Goldsmith, 
of course, was one of the readiest. It was through him that 
Glover was admitted to the Wednesday Club, of which his 
theatrical imitations became the delight. Glover, however, was 
a little anxious for the dignity of his patron, which appeared to 
him to suffer from the over-familiarity of some of the members 
of the club. He was especially shocked by the free and easy 
tone in which Goldsmith was addressed by the pig-butcher : 
" Come, Noll," would he say, as he pledged him, " here's my 
service to you, old boy ! " 

Glover whispered to Goldsmith, that he " should not allow 
such liberties." "Let him alone," was the reply, "you'll see 
how civilly I'll let him down." After a time, he called out, 
with marked ceremony and politeness, " Mr. B., I have the 
honor of drinking your good health." Alas ! dignity was not 
poor Goldsmith's forte : he could keep no one at a distance. 
" Thank'ee, thank'ee, Noll," nodded the pig-butcher, scarce tak- 
ing the pipe out of his mouth. " I don't see the effect of your 
reproof," whispered Glover. " I give it up," replied Gold- 
smith, with a good-humored shrug, " I ought to have known 
before now there is no putting a pig in the right way." 

Johnson used to be severe upon Goldsmith for mingling in 
these motley circles, observing, that, having been originally poor, 
he had contracted a love for low company. Goldsmith, how- 
ever, was guided not by a taste for what was low, but for what 
was comic and characteristic. It was the feeling of the artist ; 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 131 

the feeling which furnished out some of his best scenes in 
familiar life ; the feeling with which " rare Ben Jonson " sought 
these very haunts and circles in days of yore, to study " Every 
Man in his Humor." 

It was not always, however, that the humor of these associ- 
ates was to his taste : as they became boisterous in their merri- 
ment, he was apt to become depressed. " The company of 
fools," says he, in one of his essays, "may at first make us 
smile ; but at last never fails of making us melancholy." " Often 
he wtDuld become moody," says Glover, " and w^ould leave the 
party abruptly to go home and brood over his misfortune." 

It is possible, however, that he went home for quite a differ- 
ent purpose ; to commit to paper some scene or passage sug- 
gested for his comedy of "The Good-natured Man," The 
elaboration of humor is often a most serious task ; and we have 
never witnessed a more perfect picture of mental misery than 
was once presented to us by a popular dramatic writer — still, 
we hope, living — whom we found in the agonies of producing 
a farce which subsequently set the theatres in a roar. 

CHAPTER XX 

The Great Cham of literature and the King — Scene at Sir Joshua 
Reynolds's — Goldsmith accused of jealousy — Negotiations with 
Garrick — The author and the actor ; their correspondence 

The comedy of " The Good-natured Man " was completed by 
Goldsmith early in 1767, and submitted to the perusal of John- 
son, Burke, Reynolds, and others of the Literary Club, by whom 
it was heartily approved. Johnson, who was seldom half way 
either in censure or applause, pronounced it the best comedy 
that had been written since " The Provoked Husband," and 
promised to furnish the prologue. This immediately became an 
object of great solicitude with Goldsmith, knowing the weight 
an introduction from the Great ,Cham of literature would have 
with the public ; but circumstances occurred which he feared 
might drive the comedy and the prologue from Johnson's 
thoughts. The latter was in the habit of visiting the royal 
library at the Queen's (Buckingham) House, a noble collection 
of books, in the formation of which he had assisted the libra- 



132 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

rian, Mr. Bernard, with his advice. One evening, as he was 
seated there by the fire reading, he was surprised by the entrance 
of the King (George III.), then a young man ; who sought this 
occasion to have a conversation with him. The conversation 
was varied and discursive ; the King shifting from subject to 
subject, according to his wont; *' during the whole interview," 
says Boswell, " Johnson talked to his majesty with profound 
respect, but still in his open, manly manner, with a sonorous 
voice, and never in that subdued tone which is commonly used 
at the levee and in the drawing-room. 'I found his majesty 
wished I should talk,' said he, ' and I made it my business to 
talk. I find it does a man good to be talked to by his sov- 
ereign. In the first place, a man cannot be in a passion — .' " 
It would have been well for Johnson's colloquial disputants, 
could he have often been under such decorous restraint. Pro- 
foundly monarchical in his principles, he retired from the inter- 
view highly gratified with the conversation of the King and with 
his gracious behavior. " Sir," said he to the librarian, " they 
may talk of the King as they will, but he is the finest gentle- 
man I have ever seen." — " Sir," said he subsequently to Bennet 
Langton, " his manners are those of as fine a gentleman as we 
may suppose Lewis the Fourteenth or Charles the Second." 

While Johnson's face was still radiant with the reflex of 
royalty, he was holding forth one day to a listening group at 
Sir Joshua Reynolds's, who were anxious to hear every partic- 
ular of this memorable conversation. Among other questions, 
the King had asked him whether he was writing any thing. 
His reply was, that he thought he had already done his part 
as a writer. " I should have thought so too," said the King, 
" if you had not written so well." — " No man," said Johnson, 
commenting on this speech, " could have made a handsomer 
compliment ; and it was fit for a King to pay. It was deci- 
sive." — " But did you make no reply to this high compliment ? " 
asked one of the company. " No, sir," replied the profoundly 
deferential Johnson, "when the King had said it, it was to be 
so. It was not for me to bandy civilities with my sovereign." 

During all the time that Johnson was thus holding forth, 
Goldsmith, who was present, appeared to take no interest in 
the royal theme, but remained seated on a sofa at a distance, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 133 

in a moody fit of abstraction ; at length recollecting himself, he 
sprang up, and advancing, exclaimed, with what Boswell calls 
his usual " frankness and simplicity," " Well, you acquitted 
yourself in this conversation better than I shoul.d have done, 
for I should have bowed and stammered through the whole of 
it." He afterwards explained his seeming inattention, by say- 
ing that hi^ mind was completely occupied about his play, and 
by fears lest Johnson, in his present state of royal excitement, 
would fail to furnish the much-desired prologue. 

How natural and truthful is this explanation. Yet Boswell 
presumes to pronounce Goldsmith's inattention affected; and 
attributes it to jealousy. " It was strongly suspected," says 
he, " that he was fretting with chagrin and envy at the singular 
honor Dr. Johnson had lately enjoyed." It needed the little- 
ness of mind of Boswell to ascribe such pitiful motives to Gold- 
smith, and to entertain such exaggerated notions of the honor 
paid to Dr. Johnson. 

" The Good-natured Man " was now ready for performance, 
but the question was, how to get it upon the stage. The af- 
fairs of Covent Garden, for which it had been intended, were 
thrown in confusion by the recent death of Rich, the manager. 
Dniry Lane was under the management of Garrick, but a feud, 
it will be recollected, existed between him and the poet, from the 
animadversions of the latter on the mismanagement of theatrical 
affairs, and the refusal of the former to give the poet his vote 
for the secretaryship of the Society of Arts. Times, how- 
ever, were changed. Goldsmith, when that feud took place, 
was an anonymous writer, almost unknown to fame, and of no 
circulation in society. Now he had become a literary lion ; he 
was a member of the Literary Club ; he was the associate of 
Johnson, Burke, Topham Beauclerc, and other magnates — in a 
word, he had risen to consequence in the public eye, and of 
course was of consequence in the eyes of David Garrick. Sir 
Joshua Reynolds saw the lurking scruples of pride existing be- 
tween the author and actor, and thinking it a pity that two 
men of such congenial talents, and who might be so serviceable 
to each other, should be kept asunder by a worn-out pique, 
exerted his friendly offices to bring them together. The meet- 
ing took place in Reynolds's house in Leicester Square. Gar- 



134 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

rick, however, could not entirely put off the mock majesty of 
the stage ; he meant to be civil, but he was rather too gracious 
and condescending. Tom Davies, in his " Life of Garrick," 
gives an amusing picture of the coming together of these 
punctilious parties. "The manager," says he, "was fully 
conscious of his (Goldsmith's) merit, and perhaps more osten- 
tatious of his abilities to serve a dramatic author than became 
a man of his prudence ; Goldsmith was, on his side, as fully 
persuaded of his own importance and independent greatness. 
Mr. Garrick, who had so long been treated with the compli- 
mentary language paid to a successful patentee and admired 
actor, expected that the writer would esteem the patronage of 
his play a favor ; Goldsmith rejected all ideas of kindness in a 
bargain that was intended to be of mutual advantage to both 
parties, and in this he was certainly justifiable ; Mr. Garrick 
could reasonably expect no thanks for the acting a new play, 
which he would have rejected if he had not been convinced it 
would have amply rewarded his pains and expense. I believe 
the manager was willing to accept the play, but he wished to 
be courted to it ; and the doctor was not disposed to purchase 
his friendship by the resignation of his sincerity." They sepa- 
rated, however, with an understanding on the part of Gold- 
smith that his play would be acted. The conduct of Garrick 
subsequently proved evasive, not through any lingerings of past 
hostility, but from habitual indecision in matters of the kind, 
and from real scruples of delicacy. He did not think the piece 
likely to succeed on the stage, and avowed that opinion to 
Reynolds and Johnson ; but hesitated to say as much to Gold- 
smith, through fear of wounding his feelings. A further mis- 
understanding was the result of this want of decision and 
frankness ; repeated interviews and some correspondence took 
place without bringing matters to a point, and in the meantime 
the theatrical season passed away. 

Goldsmith's pocket, never well supplied, suffered grievously 
by this delay, and he considered himself entitled to call upon the 
manager, who still talked of acting the play, to advance him 
forty pounds upon a note of the younger Newbery. Garrick 
readily complied, but subsequently suggested certain important 
alterations in the comedy as indispensable to its success ; these 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 135 

were indignantly rejected by the author, but pertinaciously in- 
sisted on by the manager. Garrick proposed to leave the 
matter to the arbitration of Whitehead, the laureate, who 
ofl&ciated as his " reader " and elbow critic. Goldsmith was 
more indignant than ever, and a violent dispute ensued, which 
was only calmed by the interference of Burke and Reynolds. 

Just at this time, order came out of confusion in the affairs 
of Covent Garden. A pique having risen between Colman and 
Garrick, in the course of their joint authorship of " The 
Clafldestine Marriage," the former had become manager 'and 
part proprietor of Covent Garden, and was preparing to open 
a powerful competition with his former colleague. On hearing 
of this. Goldsmith made overtures to Colman ; who, without 
waiting to consult his fellow proprietors, who were absent, 
gave instantly a favorable reply. Goldsmith felt the contrast 
of this warm, encouraging conduct, to the chilling delays and 
objections of Garrick. He at once abandoned his piece to the 
discretion of Colman. " Dear sir," says he in a letter dated 
Temple Garden Court, July 9th, " I am very much obliged to 
you for your kind partiality in my favor, and your tenderness 
in shortening the interval of my expectation. That the play 
is liable to many objections I well know, but I am happy that 
it is in hands the most capable in the world of removing them. 
If then, dear sir, you will complete your favor by putting the 
piece into such a state as it may be acted, or of directing me 
how to do it, I shall ever retain a sense of your goodness to 
me. And indeed, though most probably this be the last I 
shall ever write, yet I can't help feeling a secret satisfaction 
that poets for the future are likely to have a protector who 
declines taking advantage of their dreadful situation ; and 
scorns that importance which may be acquired by trifling with 
their anxieties." 

The next day Goldsmith wrote to Garrick, who was at 
Litchfield, informing him of his having transferred his piece to 
Covent Garden, for which it had been originally written, and 
by the patentee of which it was claimed, observing, "as I 
found you had very great difl&culties about that piece, I com- 
plied with his desire. ... I am extremely sorry that you 
should think me warm at our last meeting ; your judgment 



136 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

certainly ought to be free, especially in a matter which must 
in some measure concern your own credit and interest. I as- 
sure you, sir, I have no disposition to differ with you on this or 
any other account, but am, with an high opinion of your 
abilities, and a very real esteem, sir, your most obedient humble 
servant. Oliver Goldsmith." 

In his reply, Garrick observed, "I was, indeed, much hurt 
that your warmth at our last meeting mistook my sincere and 
friendly attention to your play for the remains of a former 
misunderstanding, which I had as much forgot as if it had 
never existed. What I said to you at my own house I now 
repeat, that I felt more pain in giving my sentiments than you 
possibly would in receiving them. It has been the business, 
and ever will be, of my life to live on the best terms with men 
of genius ; and I know that Dr. Goldsmith will have no reason 
to change his previous friendly disposition towards me, as I 
shall be glad of every future opportunity to convince him how 
much I am his obedient servant and well-wisher. D. Gareick." 



CHAPTER XXI 

More hack authorship — Tom Davies and the Roman History — Can- 
onbury Castle — Political authorship — Pecuniary temptation — 
Death of Newbery the elder 

Though Goldsmith's comedy was now in train to be per- 
formed, it could not be brought out before Christmas ; in the 
meantime, he must live. Again, therefore, he had to resort 
to literary jobs for his daily support. These obtained for him 
petty occasional sums, the largest of which was ten pounds, 
from the elder Newbery, for an historical compilation ; but 
this scanty rill of quasi patronage, so sterile in its products, 
was likely soon to cease ; Newbery being too ill to attend to 
business, and having to transfer the whole management of it 
to his nephew. 

At this time Tom Davies, the sometime Roscius, sometime 
bibliopole, stepped forward to Goldsmith's relief, and proposed 
that he should undertake an easy popular history of Rome in 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 137 

two volumes. An arrangement was soon made. Goldsmith 
undertook to complete it in two years, if possible, for two 
hundred and fifty guineas, and forthwith set about his task 
with cheerful alacrity. As usual, he sought a rural retreat 
during the summer months, where he might alternate his 
literary labors with strolls about the green fields. " Merry 
Islington " was again his resort, but he now aspired to better 
quarters than formerly, and engaged the chambers occupied 
occasionally by Mr. Newbery, in Canonbury House, or Castle, 
as ii; is popularly called. This had been a hunting lodge of 
Queen Elizabeth, in whose time it was surrounded by parks 
and forests. In Goldsmith's day, nothing remained of it but an 
old brick tower ; it was still in the country, amid rural scenery, 
and was a favorite nestling-place of authors, publishers, and 
others of the literary order.^ A number of these he had for 
fellow occupants of the castle ; and they formed a temporary 
club, which held its meetings at the Crown Tavern, on the 
Islington lower road ; and here he presided in his own genial 
style, and was the life and delight of the company. 

The writer of these pages visited old Canonbury Castle some 
years since, out of regard to the memory of Goldsmith. The 
apartment was still shown which the poet had inhabited, 
consisting of a sitting-room and small bedroom, with panelled 
wainscots and Gothic windows. The quaintness and quietude 
of the place were still attractive. It was one of the resorts of 
citizens on their Sunday walks, who would ascend to the top of 
the tower and amuse themselves with reconnoitring the city 
through a telescope. Not far from this tower were the gardens 
of the White Conduit House, a Cockney Elysium, where Gold- 
smith used to figure in the humbler days of his fortune. In 
the first edition of his " Essays " he speaks of a stroll in these 

1 ** See on the distant slope, ma.iestic shows 
Old Canonbury 's tower, an ancient pile 
To various fates assigned ; and where by turns 
Meanness and grandeur have alternate reigned ; 
Thither, in latter days, hath genius fled 
From yonder city, to respire and die. 
There the sweet bard of Auburn sat, and tuned 
The plaintive moanings of his village dirge. 
There learned Chambers treasured lore for men, 
And Newbery there his A B C's for babes." 



138 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

gardens, where he at that time, no doubt, thought himself in 
perfectly genteel society. After his rise in the world, however, 
he became too knowing to speak of such plebeian haunts. 
In a new edition of his " Essays," therefore, the White Conduit 
House and its garden disappears, and he speaks of " a stroll 
in the Park." 

While Goldsmith was literally living from hand to mouth 
by the forced drudgery of the pen, his independence of spirit 
was subjected to a sore pecuniary trial. It was the opening of 
Lord North's administration, a time of great political excite- 
ment. The public mind was agitated by the question of 
American taxation, and other questions of like irritating ten- 
dency. " Junius " and Wilkes and other powerful writers 
were attacking the administration with all their force ; Grub- 
street was stirred up to its lowest depths ; inflammatory talent 
of all kinds was in full activity, and the kingdom was deluged 
with pamphlets, lampoons, and libels of the grossest kinds. 
The ministry were looking anxiously round for literary support. 
It was thought that the pen of Goldsmith might be readily 
enlisted. His hospitable friend and countryman, Robert 
Nugent, politically known as Squire Gawky, had come out 
strenuously for colonial taxation; had been selected for a lord- 
ship of the board of trade, and raised to the rank of Baron 
Nugent and Viscount Clare. His example, it was thought, 
would be enough of itself, to bring Goldsmith into the minis- 
terial ranks ; and then what writer of the day was proof against 
a full purse or a pension? Accordingly one Parson Scott, 
chaplain to Lord Sandwich, and author of Anti-Sejanus, Pan- 
urge, and other political libels in support of the administration, 
was sent to negotiate with the poet, who at this time was 
returned to town. Dr. Scott, in after years, when his political 
subserviency had been rewarded by two fat crown livings, used 
to make, what he considered, a good story out of this embassy 
to the poet. " I found him," said he, " in a miserable suit of 
chambers in the Temple. I told him my authority : I told 
how I was empowered to pay most liberally for his exertions ; 
and, would you believe it ! he was so absurd as to say ' I can 
earn as much as will supply my wants without writing for 
any party ; the assistance you offer is therefore unnecessary to 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 139 

me ; ' — and so I left him in his garret ! " Who does not admire 
the sturdy independence of poor Goldsmith toiling in his garret 
for nine guineas the job, and smile with contempt at the indig- 
nant wonder of the political divine, albeit his subserviency was 
repaid by two fat crown livings ? 

Not long after this occurrence, Goldsmith's old friend, though 
frugal-handed employer, Newbery, of picture-book renown, 
closed his mortal career. The poet has celebrated him as the 
friend of all mankind ; he certainly lost nothing by his friend- 
ship. He coined the brains of his authors in the times of their 
exigency, and made them pay dear for the plank put out to 
keep them from drowning. It is not likely his death caused 
much lamentation among the scribbling tribe ; we may express 
decent respect for the memory of the just, but we shed tears 
only at the grave of the generous. 



CHAPTER XXII 

Theatrical manoeuvring — The comedy of False Delicacy — First per- 
formance of The Good-natured Man — Conduct of Johnson — Con- 
duct of the author — Intermeddling of the press 

The comedy of " The Good-natured Man " was doomed to 
experience delays and difficulties to the very last. Garrick, 
notwithstanding his professions, had still a lurking grudge 
against the author, and tasked his managerial arts to thwart 
him in his theatrical enterprise. For this purpose he under- 
took to build up Hugh Kelly, Goldsmith's boon companion of 
the Wednesday Club, as a kind of rival, Kelly had written a 
comedy called " False Delicacy," in which were embodied all 
the meretricious qualities of the sentimental school. Garrick, 
though he had decried that school, and had brought out his 
comedy of " The Clandestine Marriage " in opposition to it, 
now lauded "False Delicacy" to the skies, and prepared to 
bring it out at Drury Lane with all possible stage effect. He 
even went so far as to write a prologue and epilogue for it, and 
to touch up some parts of the dialogue. He had become recon- 
ciled to his former colleague, Colman, and it is intimated that 
one condition in the treaty of peace between these potentates of 



140 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

the realms of pasteboard (equally prone to play into each other's 
hands with the confederate potentates on the great theatre of 
life) was, that Goldsmith's play should be kept back until 
Kelly's had been brought forward. 

In the meantime the poor author, little dreaming of the 
deleterious influence at work behind the scenes, saw the ap- 
pointed time arrive and pass by without the performance of his 
play ; while " False Delicacy " was brought out at Drury Lane 
(January 23, 1768) with all the trickery of managerial man- 
agement. Houses were packed to applaud it to the echo ; the 
newspapers vied with each other in their venal praises, and 
night after night seemed to give it a fresh triumph. 

While " False Delicacy " was thus borne on the full tide of 
fictitious prosperity, "The Good-natured Man" was creeping 
through the last rehearsals at Covent Garden. The success of 
the rival piece threw a damp upon author, manager, and actors. 
Goldsmith went about with a face full of anxiety ; Colman's 
hopes in the piece declined at each rehearsal ; as to his fellow 
proprietors, they declared they had never entertained any. All 
the actors were discontented with their parts, excepting Ned 
Shuter, an excellent low comedian, and a pretty actress named 
Miss Walford ; both of whom the poor author ever afterward 
held in grateful recollection. 

Johnson, Goldsmith's growling monitor and unsparing casti- 
gator in times of heedless levity, stood by him at present with 
that protecting kindness with which he ever befriended him in 
time of need. He attended the rehearsals ; he furnished the 
prologue according to promise ; he pish'd and pshaw'd at any 
doubts and fears on the part of the author, but gave him sound 
counsel, and held him up with a steadfast and manly hand. 
Inspirited by his sympathy, Goldsmith plucked up new heart, 
and arrayed himself for the grand trial with unusual care. Ever 
since his elevation into the polite world, he had improved in his 
wardrobe and toilet. Johnson could no longer accuse him of 
being shabby in his appearance ; he rather went to the other 
extreme. On the present occasion there is an entry in the books 
of his tailor, Mr. William Filby, of a suit of " Tyrian bloom, 
satin grain, and garter blue silk breeches, .£8 2s. 7d." Thus 
magnificently attired, he attended the theatre and watched the 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 141 

reception of the play, and the effect of each individual scene, 
with that vicissitude of feeling incident to his mercurial 
nature. 

Johnson's prologue was solemn in itself, and being delivered 
by Brinsley in lugubrious tones suited to the ghost in " Ham- 
let," seemed to throw a portentous gloom on the audience. 
Some of the scenes met with great applause, and at such times 
Goldsmith was highly elated ; others went off coldly, or there 
were slight tokens of disapprobation, and then his spirits would 
siiTk. The fourth act saved the piece ; for Shuter, who had the 
main comic character of Croaker, was so varied and ludicrous 
in his execution of the scene in which he reads an incendiary 
letter, that he drew down thunders of applause. On his coming 
behind the scenes, Goldsmith greeted him with an overflowing 
heart ; declaring that he exceeded his own idea of the character, 
and made it almost as new to him as to any of the audience. 

On the whole, however, both the author and his friends were 
disappointed at the reception of the piece, and considered it a 
failure. Poor Goldsmith left the theatre with his towering 
hopes completely cut down. He endeavored to hide his morti- 
fication, and even to assume an air of unconcern while among 
his associates ; but, the moment he was alone with Dr. John- 
son, in whose rough but magnanimous nature he reposed un- 
limited confidence, he threw off all restraint and gave way to 
an almost childlike burst of grief. Johnson, who had shown 
no want of sympathy at the proper time, saw nothing in the 
partial disappointment of overrated expectations to warrant 
such ungoverned emotions, and rebuked him sternly for what he 
termed a silly affectation, saying that " No man should be ex- 
pected to sympathize with the sorrows of vanity." 

When Goldsmith had recovered from the blow, he, with his 
usual unreserve, made his past distress a subject of amusement 
to his friends. Dining one day, in company with Dr. Johnson, 
at the chaplain's table at St. James's Palace, he entertained the 
company with a particular and comic account of all his feelings 
on the night of representation, and his despair when the piece 
was hissed. How he went, he said, to the Literary Club; 
chatted gayly, as if nothing had gone amiss ; and, to give a 
greater idea of his unconcern, sang his favorite song about an 



142 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

old woman tossed in a blanket seventeen times as high as the 
moon. ... " All this while," added he, "I was suffering hor- 
rid tortures, and, had I put a bit in my mouth, I verily believe 
it would have strangled me on the spot, I was so excessively 
ill : but I made more noise than usual to cover all that ; so they 
never perceived my not eating, nor suspected the anguish of my 
heart ; but, when all were gone except Johnson here, I burst 
out a-crying, and even swore that I would never write again." 

Dr. Johnson sat in amaze at the odd frankness and childlike 
self-accusation of poor Goldsmith. When the latter had come 
to a pause, "All this, doctor," said he dryly, "I thought had 
been a secret between you and me, and I am sure I would not 
have said any thing about it for the world." But Goldsmith 
had no secrets : his follies, his weaknesses, his errors were all 
thrown to the surface ; his heart was really too guileless and 
innocent to seek mystery and concealment. It is too often the 
false, designing man that is guarded in his conduct and never 
offends proprieties. 

It is singular, however, that Goldsmith, who thus in conver- 
sation could keep nothing to himself, should be the author of a 
maxim which would inculcate the most thorough dissimulation. 
" Men of the world," says he in one of the papers of the Bee^ 
" maintain that the true end of speech is not so much to express 
our wants as to conceal them."^ How often is this quoted as 
one of the subtle remarks of the fine witted Talleyrand ! 

" The Good-natured Man " was performed for ten nights 
in succession ; the third, sixth, and ninth nights were for the 
author's benefit ; the fifth night it was commanded by their 
majesties ; after this it was played occasionally, but rarely, hav- 
ing always pleased more in the closet than on the stage. 

As to Kelly's comedy, Johnson pronounced it entirely devoid 
of character, and it has long since passed into oblivion. Yet it 
is an instance how an inferior production, by dint of puflBng and 
trumpeting, may be kept up for a time on the surface of popu- 
lar opinion, or rather of popular talk. What had been done for 
" False Delicacy " on the stage was continued by the press. 
The booksellers vied with the manager in launching it upon the 
town. They announced that the first impression of three thou- 

1 The Bee, No. iii. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 143 

sand copies was exhausted before two o'clock on the day of 
publication ; four editions, amounting to ten thousand copies, 
were sold in the course of the season ; a public breakfast was 
given to Kelly at the Chapter Coffee-House, and a piece of plate 
presented to him by the publishers. The comparative merits 
of the two plays were continually subjects of discussion in 
green-rooms, coffee-houses, and other places where theatrical 
questions were discussed. 

Goldsmith's old enemy, Kenrick, that " viper of the press," 
endeavored on this as on many other occasions to detract from 
his well-earned fame ; the poet was excessively sensitive to these 
attacks, and had not the art and self-command to conceal his 
feelings. 

Some scribblers on the other side insinuated that Kelly had 
seen the manuscript of Goldsmith's play, while in the hands of 
Garrick or elsewhere, and had borrowed some of the situations 
and sentiments. Some of the wags of the day took a mischiev- 
ous pleasure in stirring up a feud between the two authors. 
Goldsmith became nettled, though he could scarcely be deemed 
jealous of one so far his inferior. He spoke disparagingly, 
though no doubt sincerely, of Kelly's play : the latter retorted. 
Still, when they met one day behind the scenes of Covent Gar- 
den, Goldsmith, with his customary urbanity, congratulated 
Kelly on his success. "If I thought you sincere, Mr. Gold- 
smith," replied the other, abruptly, "I should thank you." 
Goldsmith was not a man to harbor spleen or ill-will, and soon 
laughed at this unworthy rivalship : but the jealousy and envy 
awakened in Kelly's mind long continued. He is even accused 
of having given vent to his hostility by anonymous attacks in 
the newspapers, the basest resource of dastardly and malignant 
spirits ; but of this there is no positive proof. 



144 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



CHAPTER XXIII 

Burning the candle at both ends — Fine apartments — Fine furniture 
— Fine clothes — Fine acquaintances — Shoemaker's holiday and 
jolly pigeon associates — Peter Barlow, Glover, and the Hampstead 
hoax — Poor friends among great acquaintances 

The profits resulting from " The Good-natured Man " were 
beyond any that Goldsmith had yet derived from his works. 
He netted about four hundred pounds from the theatre, and 
one hundred pounds from his publisher. 

Five hundred pounds ! and all at one miraculous draught ! 
It appeared to him wealth inexhaustible. It at once opened 
his heart and hand, and led him into all kinds of extravagance. 
The first symptom was ten guineas sent to Shuter for a box 
ticket for his benefit, when " The Good-natured Man " was to 
be performed. The next was an entire change in his domicil. 
The shabby lodgings with Jeffs, the butler, in which he had 
been worried by Johnson's scrutiny, were now exchanged for 
chambers more becoming a man of his ample fortune. The 
apartments consisted of three rooms on the second floor of No. 2 
Brick Court, Middle Temple, on the right hand ascending the 
staircase, and overlooked the umbrageous walks of the Temple 
garden. The lease he purchased for <£400, and then went on to 
furnish his rooms with mahogany sofas, card-tables, and book- 
cases ; with curtains, mirrors, and Wilton carpets. His awkward 
little person was also furnished out in a style befitting his 
apartment ; for, in addition to his suit of " Tyrian bloom, 
satin grain," we find another charged about this time, in the 
books of Mr. Filby, in no less gorgeous terms, being " lined with 
silk and furnished with gold buttons." Thus lodged and thus 
arrayed, he invited the visits of his most aristocratic acquaint- 
ances, and no longer quailed beneath the courtly eye of Beau- 
clerc. He gave dinners to Johnson, Reynolds, Percy, Bickerstafl', 
and other friends of note ; and supper parties to J'oung folks of 
both sexes. These last were preceded by round games of cards, 
at which there was more laughter than skill, and in which the 
sport was to cheat each other ; or by romping games of forfeits 
and blind-man's buff, at which he enacted the lord of misrule. 




NOS. I AND 2, BRICK COURT, LONDON 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 145 

Blackstone, whose chambers were immediately below, and who 
was studiously occupied on his " Commentaries," used to com- 
plain of the racket made overhead by his revelling neighbor. 

Sometimes Goldsmith would make up a rural party, com- 
posed of four or five of his "jolly pigeon " friends, to enjoy what 
he humorously called a "shoemaker's holiday." These would 
assemble at his chambers in the morning, to partake of a plenti- 
ful and rather expensive breakfast ; the remains of which, with 
his customary benevolence, he generally gave to some poor 
woman in attendance. The repast ended, the party would set 
out on foot, in high spirits, making extensive rambles by 
foot-paths and green lanes to Blackheath, Wandsworth, Chel- 
sea, Hampton Court, Highgate, or some other pleasant resort, 
within a few miles of London. A simple but gay and heartily 
relished dinner, at a country inn, crowned the excursion. In 
the evening they strolled back to town, all the better in health 
and spirits for a day spent in rural and social enjoyment. 
Occasionally, when extravagantly inclined, they adjourned from 
dinner to drink tea at the White Conduit House ; and, now and 
then, concluded their festive day by supping at the Grecian or 
Temple Exchange Coffee-Houses, or at the Globe Tavern, in 
Fleet-street. The whole expenses of the day never exceeded a 
crown, and were oftener from three and sixpence to four shill- 
ings ; for the best part of their entertainment, sweet air, and 
rural scenes, excellent exercise and joyous conversation, cost 
nothing. 

One of Goldsmith's humble companions, on these excursions, 
was his occasional amanuensis, Peter Barlow, whose quaint 
peculiarities afforded much amusement to the company. Peter 
w^as poor but punctihous, squaring his expenses according to his 
means. He always wore the same garb ; fixed his regular 
expenditure for dinner at a trifling sum, which, if left to him- 
self, he never exceeded, but which he always insisted on pay- 
ing. His oddities always made him a welcome companion on 
the " shoemaker's holidays." The dinner, on these occasions, 
generally exceeded considerably his tariff; he put down, how- 
ever, no more than his regular sum, and Goldsmith made up 
the difference. 

Another of these hangers-on, for whom, on such occasions, 



14:6 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

he was content to " pay the shot," was his countryman, Glover, 
of whom mention has already been made, as one of the wags 
and sponges of the Globe and Devil taverns, and a prime mimic 
at the Wednesday Club. 

This vagabond genius has bequeathed us a whimsical story 
of one of his practical jokes upon Goldsmith, in the course of a 
rural excursion in the vicinity of Londou. They had dined at 
an inn on Hampstead Heights, and were descending the hill, 
when, in passing a cottage, they saw through the open window 
a party at tea. Goldsmith, who was fatigued, cast a wistful 
glance at the cheerful tea-table. " How I should like to be 
of that party," exclaimed he. " Nothing more easy," replied 
Glover; "allow me to introduce you." So saying, he entered 
the house with an air of the most perfect familiarity, though an 
utter stranger, and was followed by the unsuspecting Goldsmith, 
who supposed, of course, that he was a friend of the family. 
The owner of the house rose on the entrance of the strangers. 
The undaunted Glover shook hands with him in the most cor- 
dial manner possible, fixed his eye on one of the company who 
had a peculiarly good-natured physiognomy, muttered some- 
thing like a recognition, and forthwith launched into an amus- 
ing story, invented at the moment, of something which he 
pretended had occurred upon the road. The host supposed the 
new-comers were friends of his guests ; the guests, that they 
were friends of the host. Glover did not give them time to 
find out the truth. He followed one droll story with another ; 
brought his powers of mimicry into play, and kept the company 
in a roar. Tea was offered and accepted ; an hour went otf 
in the most sociable manner imaginable, at the end of which 
Glover bowed himself and his companion out of the house with 
many facetious last words, leaving the host and his company to 
compare notes, and to find out what an impudent intrusion they 
had experienced. 

Nothing could exceed the dismay and vexation of Goldsmith 
when triumphantly told by Glover that it was all a hoax, and 
that he did not know a single soul in the house. His first im- 
pulse was to return instantly and vindicate himself from, all par- 
ticipation in the jest ; but a few words from his free and easy 
companion dissuaded him. "Doctor," said he, coolly, "we are 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 147 

unknown ; you quite as much as I ; if you return and tell the 
story, it will be in the newspapers to-morrow ; nay, upon recol- 
lection, I remember in one of their offices the face of that 
squinting fellow who sat in the corner as if he was treasuring 
up my stories for future use, and we shall be sure of being 
exposed ; let us therefore keep our own counsel." 

This story was frequently afterward told by Glover, with rich 
dramatic effect, repeating and exaggerating the conversation, 
and mimicking, in ludicrous style, the embarrassment, surprise, 
an^ subsequent indignation of Goldsmith. 

It is a trite saying that a wheel cannot run in two ruts ; nor 
a man keep two opposite sets of intimates. Goldsmith some- 
times found his old friends of the "jolly pigeon " order turning 
up rather awkwardly when he was in company with his new 
aristocratic acquaintances. He gave a whimsical account of 
the sudden apparition of one of them at his gay apartments in 
the Temple, who may have been a welcome visitor at his squalid 
quarters in Green Arbor Court. " How do you think he served 
me?" said he to a friend. "Why, sir, after staying away two 
years, he came one evening into my chambers, half drunk, as .1 
was taking a glass of wine with Topham Beauclerc and Gen- 
eral Oglethorpe ; and sitting himself down, with most intolerable 
assurance inquired after my health and literary pursuits, as if we 
were upon the most friendly footing. I was at first so much 
ashamed of ever having known such a fellow, that I stifled my 
resentment, and drew him into a conversation on such topics as 
I knew he could talk upon ; in which, to do him justice, he ac- 
quitted himself very reputably; when all of a sudden, as if 
recollecting something, he pulled two papers out of his pocket, 
which he presented to me with great ceremony, saying, ' Here, 
my dear friend, is a quarter of a pound of tea, and a half pound 
of sugar, I have brought you ; for though it is not in my power 
at present to pay you the two guineas you so generously lent 
me, you, nor any man else, shall ever have it to say that I want 
gratitude.' This," added Goldsmith, " was too much. I could 
no longer keep in my feelings, but desired him to turn out of 
my chambers directly ; which he very coolly did, taking up his 
tea and sugar ; and I never saw him afterwards." 



148 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



CHAPTER XXIV 

Reduced again to book-building — Rural retreat at Shoemaker's Para- 
dise — Death of Henry Goldsmith ; tributes to his memory in the 
Deserted Village 

The heedless expenses of Goldsmith, as may easily be sup- 
posed, soon brought him to the end of his " prize money," but 
when his purse gave out he drew upon futurity, obtaining 
advances from his booksellers and loans from his friends in the 
confident hope of soon turning up another trump. The debts 
which he thus thoughtlessly incurred in consequence of a tran- 
sient gleam of prosperity embarrassed him for the rest of his 
life ; so that the success of " The Good-natured Man " may be 
said to have been ruinous to him. 

He was soon obliged to resume his old craft of book-building, 
and set about his " History of Rome," undertaken for Davies. 

It was his custom, as we have shown, during the summer 
time, when pressed by a multiplicity of literary jobs, or urged 
to the accomplishment of some particular task, to take country 
lodgings a few miles from town, generally on the Harrow or 
Edgeware roads, and bury himself there for weeks and months 
together. Sometimes he would remain closely occupied in his 
room, at other times he would stroll out along the lanes and 
hedge-rows, and taking out paper and pencil, note down 
thoughts to be expanded and connected at home. His summer 
retreat for the present year, 1768, was a little cottage with a 
garden, pleasantly situated about eight miles from town on the 
Edgeware road. He took it in conjunction with a Mr. Edmund 
Bott, a barrister and man of letters, his neighbor in the Temple, 
having rooms immediately opposite him on the same floor. 
They had become cordial intimates, and Bott was one of those 
with whom Goldsmith now and then took the friendly but per- 
nicious liberty of borrowing. 

The cottage which they had hired belonged to a rich shoe- 
maker of Piccadilly, who had embellished his little domain of 
half an acre with statues, and jets, and all the decorations of 
landscape gardening ; in consequence of which Goldsmith gave 
it the name of The Shoemaker's Paradise. As his fellow occu- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 149 

pant, Mr. Bott, drove a gig, he sometimes, in an interval of 
literary labor, accompanied him to town, partook of a social din- 
ner there, and returned with him in the evening. On one occa- 
sion, when they had probably lingered too long at the table, 
they came near breaking their necks on their way homeward 
by driving against a post on the side-walk, while Bott was 
proving by the force of legal eloquence that they were in the 
very middle of the broad Edgeware road. 

In the course of this summer, Goldsmith's career of gayety 
waai suddenly brought to a pause by intelligence of the 
death of his brother Henry, then but forty-five years of age. 
He had led a quiet and blameless life amid the scenes of his 
youth, fulfilling the duties of village pastor with unaff'ected 
piety ; conducting the school at Lissoy with a degree of indus- 
try and ability that gave it celebrity, and acquitting himself in 
all the duties of life with undeviating rectitude and the mildest 
benevolence. How truly Goldsmith loved and venerated him 
is evident in all his letters and throughout his works ; in which 
his brother continually forms his model for an exemplification 
of all the most endearing of the Christian virtues; yet his 
affection at his death was embittered by the fear that he died 
with some doubt upon his mind of the warmth of his affection. 
Goldsmith had been urged by his friends in Ireland, since his 
elevation in the world, to use his influence with the great, 
which they supposed to be all powerful, in favor of Henry, to 
obtain for him church preferment. He did exert himself as far 
as his diffident nature would permit, but without success ; we 
have seen that, in the case of the Earl of Northumberland, 
when, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, that nobleman proffered 
him his patronage, he asked nothing for himself, but only spoke 
on behalf of his brother. Still some of his friends, ignorant of 
what he had done and of how little he was able to do, accused 
him of negligence. It is not likely, however, that his amiable 
and estimable brother joined in the accusation. 

To the tender and melancholy recollections of his early days 
awakened by the death of this loved companion of his child- 
hood, we may attribute some of the most heartfelt passages in 
his " Deserted Village." Much of that poem we are told was 
composed this summer, in the course of solitary strolls about 



150^ OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

the green lanes and beautifully rural scenes of the neighborhood ; 
and thus much of the softness and sweetness of English land- 
scape became blended with the ruder features of Lissoy. It 
was in these lonely and subdued moments, when tender regret 
was half mingled with self-upbraiding, that he poured forth 
that homage of the heart rendered as it were at the grave of his 
brother. The picture of the village pastor in this poem, which 
we have already hinted, was taken in part from the character of 
his father, embodied likewise the recollections of his brother 
Henry ; for the natures of the father and son seem to have been 
identical. In the following lines, however, Goldsmith evidently 
contrasted the quiet settled life of his brother, passed at home 
in the benevolent exercise of the Christian duties, with his own 
restless vagrant career : 

" Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place." 

To us the whole character seems traced as it were in an expia- 
tory spirit ; as if, conscious of his own wandering restlessness, 
he sought to humble himself at the shrine of excellence which 
he had not been able to practise : 

"At church with meek and unaffected grace, 
His looks adorn' d the venerable place ; 
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, 
And fools, who came to scoff, remain' d to pray. 
The service past, around the pious man, 
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran ; 
Even children follow'd, with endearing wile, 
And pluck' d his gown, to share the good man's smile : 
His ready smile a parent's warmth express'd. 
Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd ; 
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given. 
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 

^ ^ ^ ¥^ ^ ^ 

And, as a bird each fond endearment tries 
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay, 
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way^ 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 151 



CHAPTER XXV 

Dinner at Bickerstaff's — Hiffernan and his impecuniosity — Kenrick's 
epigram — Johnson's consolation — Goldsmith's toilet — The bloom- 
colored coat — New acquaintances — The Hornecks — A touch of 
poetry and passion — The Jessamy Bride 

In October, Goldsmith returned to town and resumed his 
usual haunts. We hear of him at a dinner given by his country- 
man, Isaac Bickerstaff, author of "Love in a Village," "Lionel 
andXIlarissa," and other successful dramatic pieces. The dinner 
was to be followed by the reading by j Bickerstaff of a new 
play. Among the guests was one Paul Hiffernan, likewise an 
Irishman ; somewhat idle and intemperate ; who lived nobody 
knew how nor where, sponging wherever he had a chance, and 
often of course upon Goldsmith, who was ever the vagabond's 
friend, or rather victim. Hiffernan was something of a physi- 
cian, and elevated the emptiness of his purse into the dignity 
of a disease, which he termed impecuniosity, and against which 
he claimed a right to call for relief from the healthier purses of 
his friends. He was a scribbler for the newspapers, and lat- 
terly a dramatic critic, which had probably gained him an 
invitation to the dinner and reading. The wine and wassail, 
however, befogged his senses. Scarce had the author got into 
the second act of his play, when Hiffernan began to nod, and at 
length snored outright. Bickerstaff was embarrassed, but con- 
tinued to read in a more elevated tone. The louder he read, 
the louder Hiffernan snored ; until the author came to a pause. 
" Never mind the brute, Bick, but go on," cried Goldsmith. 
" He would have served Homer just so, if he were here and 
reading his own works." 

Kenrick, Goldsmith's old enemy, travestied this anecdote in 
the following lines, pretending that the poet had compared his 
countryman Bickerstaff to Homer. 

" What are your Bretons, Romans, Grecians, 
Compared with thorough-bred Milesians ! 
Step into Griffin's shop, he'll tell ye 
Of Goldsmith, Bickerstaff, and Kelly . . . 
And, take one Irish evidence for t'other, 
Ev'n Homer's self is but their foster brother." 



152 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Johnson was a rough consoler to a man when wincing under 
an attack of this kind. "Never mind, sir," said he to Gold- 
smith, when he saw that he felt the sting. " A man whose 
business it is to be talked of is much helped by being attacked. 
Fame, sir, is a shuttlecock ; if it be struck only at one end of 
the room, it will soon fall to the ground ; to keep it up, it must 
be struck at both ends." 

Bickerstaff at the time of which we are speaking was in high 
vogue, the associate of the first wits of the day ; a few years 
afterwards, he was obliged to fly the country to escape the 
punishment of an infamous crime. Johnson expressed great 
astonishment at hearing the offence for which he had fled. 
" Why, sir ? " said Thrale ; " he had long been a suspected man." 
Perhaps there was a knowing look on the part of the eminent 
brewer, which provoked a somewhat contemptuous reply. " By 
those who look close to the ground," said Johnson, " dirt will 
sometimes be seen ; I hope I see things from a greater distance." 

We have already noticed the improvement, or rather the in- 
creased expense, of Goldsmith's wardrobe since his elevation 
into polite society. " He was fond," says one of his contempo- 
raries, " of exhibiting his muscular little person in the gayest 
apparel of the day, to which was added a bag- wig and sword." 
Thus arrayed, he used to figure about in the sunshine in the 
Temple Gardens, much to his own satisfaction, but to the 
amusement of his acquaintances. 

Boswell, in his memoirs, has rendered one of his suits for 
ever famous. That worthy, on the 16th of October in this same 
year^ gave a dinner to Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick, 
Murphy, Bickerstaff", and Davies. Goldsmith was generally apt 
to bustle in at the last moment, when the guests were taking 
their seats at table, but on this occasion he was unusually early. 
While waiting for some lingerers to arrive, " he strutted about," 
says Boswell, " bragging of his dress, and I believe, was seriously 
vain of it, for his mind was undoubtedly prone to such impres- 
sions. ' Come, come,' said Garrick, ' talk no more of that. 
You are perhaps the worst — eh, eh 1 ' Goldsmith was eagerly 
attempting to interrupt him, when Garrick went on, laughing 
ironically. ' Nay, you will always look like a gentleman ; but 
I am talking of your being well or ill dressed.' * Well, let me 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 153 

tell you,' said Goldsmith, 'when the tailor brought home my 
bloom-colored coat, he said, " Sir, I have a favor to beg of you ; 
when any body asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to 
mention John Filby, at the Harrow, in Water Lane." ' ' Why, 
sir,' cried Johnson, ' that was because he knew the strange color 
would attract crowds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of 
him, and see how well he could make a coat of so absurd a color.' " 

But though Goldsmith might permit this raillery on the part 
of his friends, he was quick to resent any personalities of the 
kin4 from strangers. As he was one day walking the Strand 
in grand array with bag-wig and sword, he excited the merri- 
ment of two coxcombs, one of whom called to the other to " look 
at that fly with a long pin stuck through it." Stung to the 
quick. Goldsmith's first retort was to caution the passers-by to 
be on their guard against " that brace of disguised pickpockets " 
— his next was to step into the middle of the street, where 
there was room for action, half-draw his sword, and beckon the 
joker, who was armed in like manner, to follow him. This 
was literally a war of wit which the other had not anticipated. 
He had no inclination to push the joke to such an extreme, but 
abandoning the ground, sneaked off with his brother wag amid 
the hootings of the spectators. 

This proneness to finery in dress, however, which Boswell 
and others of Goldsmith's contemporaries, who did not under- 
stand the secret plies of his character, attributed to vanity, 
arose, we are convinced, from a widely different motive. It was 
from a painful idea of his own personal defects, which had been 
cruelly stamped upon his mind in his boyhood, by the sneers 
and jeers of his playmates, and had been ground deeper into it 
by rude speeches made to him in every step of his struggling 
career, until it had become a constant cause of awkwardness and 
embarrassment. This he had experienced the more sensibly 
since his reputation had elevated him into polite society ; and 
he was constantly endeavoring by the aid of dress to acquire 
that personal acceptability, if we may use the phrase, which 
nature had denied him. If ever he betrayed a little self-com- 
placency on first turning out in a new suit, it may, perhaps, 
have been because he felt as if he had achieved a triumph over 
his ugliness. 



154 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

There were circumstances too, about the time of which we 
are treating, which may have rendered Goldsmith more than 
usually attentive to his personal appearance. He had recently 
made the acquaintance of a most agreeable family from Devon- 
shire, which he met at the house of his friend, Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds. It consisted of Mrs. Horneck, widow of Captain Kane 
Horneck ; two daughters, seventeen and nineteen years of age, 
and an only son, Charles, the Captain in Lace, as his sisters play- 
fully and somewhat proudly called him, he having lately entered the 
Guards. The daughters are described as uncommonly beautiful, 
intelligent, sprightly, and agreeable. Catharine, the eldest, 
went among her friends by the name of Little Comedy, indica- 
tive, very probably, of her disposition. She was engaged to 
Henry William Bunbury, second son of a Suffolk baronet. The 
hand and heart of her sister Mary were yet unengaged, although 
she bore the by-name among her friends of the Jessamy Bride. 
This family was prepared, by their intimacy with Reynolds and 
his sister, to appreciate the merits of Goldsmith. The poet 
had always been a chosen friend of the eminent painter, and 
Miss Reynolds, as we have shown, ever since she had heard his 
poem of "The Traveller" read aloud, had ceased to consider 
him ugly. The Hornecks were equally capable of forgetting 
his person in admiring his works. On becoming acquainted 
with him, too, they were delighted with his guileless simplicity, 
his buoyant good-nature, and his innate benevolence, and an en- 
during intimacy soon sprang up between them. For once poor 
Goldsmith had met with polite society, with which he was per- 
fectly at home, and by which he was fully appreciated; for 
once he had met with lovely women, to whom his ugly features 
were not repulsive. A proof of the easy and playful terms in 
which he was with them, remains in a whimsical epistle in 
verse, of which the following was the occasion. A dinner was 
to be given to their family by a Dr. Baker, a friend of their 
mother's, at which Reynolds and Angelica Kauffman were to be 
present. The young ladies were eager to have Goldsmith of 
the party, and their intimacy with Dr. Baker allowing them to 
take the liberty, they wrote a joint invitation to the poet at 
the last moment. It came too late, and drew from him the 
following reply ; on the top of which was scrawled, This is 
a poem ! This is a copy of verses ! 




MARY HORNECK 

"the jessamy bkiue" 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 155 

*' Your mandate I got, , 

You may all go to pot ; 

Had your senses been right, 

You'd have sent before night — 

So tell Horneck and Nesbitt 

And Baker and his bit, ' 

And Kauffman beside, 

And the Jessamy Bride, 

With the rest of the crew, 

The Reynoldses too, 

Little Comedifs face, 
• And the Captain iti Lace — '' 

Tell each other to rue ' 

Your Devonshire crew, 
For sending so late 
To one of my state. 
But 'tis Reynolds's way 
From wisdom to stray, 
And Angelica's whim 
To befrolic like him ; 
wl >? l/?"""" ^f ^"^ worships, how could they be wiser 
When both have been spoil'd in to-day's Adv7rtise7r'i' 

It has been intimated that the intimacy of poor Goldsmith 
with the Miss Hornecks, which began in so sprightly a ve„ 
gradually assumed something of a m^ore tender nature and thai 
he was not insensible to the fascinations of the younger sister 
This may account for some of the phenomena wh^cirabout tl [; 
time appeared in his wardrobe and toilet. During the fir t 
year of his acquaintance with these lovely girls the tell t.l 

nve lull suits, beside separate articles of dress. Amonc the 
Items we find a green half^trimmed frock and breeches^ined 

^oni:i!^'^7rol,^T^^^^^^^ M.eniser, on the 

" vSnwri^ Angelica, with matchless grace, 
Paints Conway's burly form and Stanhope's face- 
Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay ' 

£ l?''^,^^??/'"^' ^"^ ^a^e our soSls away t 
But when the likeness she hath done for thee' 
O Reynolds! with astonishment we see ' 

Forced to submit, with all our pride we' own 
Such strength, such harmony excelled by none 
And thou art rivalled by thyself alone.'' ' 



156 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

with silk ; a queen's blue dress suit ; a half-dress suit of rat- 
teen, lined with satin ; a pair of silk stocking breeches, and 
another pair of a bloom color. Alas ! poor Goldsmith ! how 
much of this silken finery was dictated, not by vanity, but 
humble consciousness of thy defects j how much of it was to 
atone for the uncouthness of thy person, and to win favor in the 
eyes of the Jessamy Bride ! 

CHAPTER XXVI 

Goldsmith in the Temple— Judge Day and Grattan — Labor and dissi- 
pation — Publication of the Roman History — Opinions of it — His- 
tory of Animated Nature — Temple rookery — Anecdotes of a spider 

In the winter of 1768-69 Goldsmith occupied himself at his 
quarters in the Temple, slowly " building up " his " Roman His- 
tory." We have pleasant views of him in this learned and half- 
cloistered retreat of wits and lawyers and legal students, in 
the reminiscences of Judge Day of the Irish Bench, who in his 
advanced age delighted to recall the days of his youth, when 
he was a templar, and to speak of the kindness with which he 
and his fellow-student, Grattan, were treated by the poet. " I 
was just arrived from college," said he, " full freighted with 
academic gleanings, and our author did not disdain to receive 
from me some opinions and hints towards his Greek and Roman 
histories. Being then a young man, I felt much flattered by 
the notice of so celebrated a person. He took great delight in 
the conversation of Grattan, whose brilliancy in the morning 
of life furnished full earnest of the unrivalled splendor which 
awaited his meridian ; and finding us dwelling together in 
Essex Court, near himself, where he frequently visited my 
immortal friend, his warm heart became naturally prepossessed 
towards the associate of one whom he so much admired." 

The judge goes on, in his reminiscences, to give a picture of 
Goldsmith's social habits, similar in style to those already 
furnished. He frequented much the Grecian Coifee-House, 
then the favorite resort of the Irish and Lancashire Templars. 
He delighted in collecting his friends around him at evening 
parties at his chambers, where he entertained them with a cor- 



OLIVEK GOLDSMITH 157 

dial and unostentatious hospitality. " Occasionally," adds the 
judge, "he amused them with his flute, or with whist, neither 
of which he played well, particularly the latter, but, on losing 
his money, he never lost his temper. In a run of bad luck and 
worse play, he would fling his cards upon the floor and exclaim, 
' Byefore George, I ought for ever to renounce thee, fickle, 
faithless fortune.' " 

The judge was aware, at the time, that all the learned labor 
of poor Goldsmith upon his " Roman History " was mere hack 
work* to recruit his exhausted finances. "His purse replen- 
ished," adds he, "by labors of this kind, the season of relaxa- 
tion and pleasure took its turn, in attending the theatres, 
Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and other scenes of gayety and amuse- 
ment. Whenever his funds were dissipated — and they fled 
more rapidly from being the dupe of many artful persons, male 
and female, who practised upon his benevolence — he returned 
to his literary labors, and shut himself up from society to 
provide fresh matter for his bookseller, and fresh supplies for 
himself." 

How completely had the young student discerned the charac- 
teristics of poor, genial, generous, drudging, holiday-loving Gold- 
smith ; toiling, that he might play ; earning his bread by the 
sweat of his brains, and then throwing it out of the window. 

The " Roman History " was published in the middle of May, 
in two volumes of five hundred pages each. It was brought 
out without parade or pretension, and was announced as for 
the use of schools and colleges ; but, though a work written for 
bread, not fame, such is its ease, perspicuity, good sense, and 
the delightful simplicity of its style, that it was well received 
by the critics, commanded a prompt and extensive sale, and 
has ever since remained in the hands of young and old. 

Johnson, who, as we have before remarked, rarely praised or 
dispraised things by halves, broke forth in a warm eulogy of 
the author and the work, in a conversation with Boswell, to 
the great astonishment of the latter. " Whether we take Gold- 
smith," said he, " as a poet, as a comic writer, or as an histo- 
rian, he stands in the first class." Boswell. — " An historian ! 
My dear sir, you surely will not rank his compilation of the 
' Roman History ' with the works of other historians of this 



158 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

age." Johnson. — " Why, who are before him ? " Boswell. 
— ■ " Hume — Robertson — Lord Lyttelton." Johnson (his 
antipathy against the Scotch beginning to rise). — "I have 
not read Hume ; but doubtless Goldsmith's history is better 
than the verbiage of Robertson, or the foppery of Dalrymple." 
Boswell. — "Will you not admit the superiority of Robertson, 
in whose history we find such penetration, such painting 1 " 
Johnson. — " Sir, you must consider how that penetration and 
that painting are employed. It is not history, it is imagina- 
tion. He who describes what he never saw, draws from fancy. 
Roberston paints minds as Sir Joshua paints faces, in a history- 
piece ; he imagines an heroic countenance. You must look 
upon Robertson's work as romance, and try it by that stand- 
ard. History it is not. Besides, sir, it is the great excellence 
of a writer to put into his book as much as his book will hold. 
Goldsmith has done this in his history. Now Robertson might 
have put twice as much in his book. Robertson is like a man 
who has packed gold in wool ; the wool takes up more room 
than the gold. No, sir, I always thought Robertson would be 
crushed with his own weight — would be buried under his own 
ornaments. Goldsmith tells you shortly all you want to know; 
Robertson detains you a great deal too long. No man will 
read Robertson's cumbrous detail a second time ; but Gold- 
smith's plain narrative will please again and again. I would 
say to Robertson what an old tutor of a college said to one of 
his pupils, ' Read over your compositions, and, whenever you 
meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, 
strike it out ! ' Goldsmith's abridgment is better than that of 
Lucius Florus or Eutropius ; and I will venture to say, that if 
you compare him with Vertot in the same places of the ' Roman 
History,' you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the 
art of compiling, and of saying every thing he has to say in a 
pleasing manner. He is now writing a natural history, and 
will make it as entertaining as a Persian tale." 

The natural history to which Johnson alluded was the " His- 
tory of Animated Nature," which Goldsmith commenced in 
1769, under an engagement with Grifiin, the bookseller, to 
complete it as soon as possible in eight volumes, each contain- 
ing upwards of four hundred pages, in pica ; a hundred guineas 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 159 

to be paid to the author on the delivery of each volume in 
manuscript. 

He was induced to engage in this work by the urgent solici- 
tations of the booksellers, who had been struck by the sterling 
merits and captivating style of an introduction which he wrote 
to Brookes's " Natural History." It was Goldsmith's intention 
originally to make a translation of Pliny, with a popular com- 
mentary ; but the appearance of Buffon's work induced him to 
change his plan, and make use of that author for a guide and 
model. 

Cumberland, speaking of this work, observes : " Distress 
drove Goldsmith upon undertakings neither congenial with his 
studies nor worthy of his talents. I remember him when, in 
his chambers in the Temple, he showed me the beginning of his 
' Animated Nature ' ; it was with a sigh, such as genius draws 
when hard necessity diverts it from its bent to drudge for 
bread, and talk of birds, and beasts, and creeping things, which 
Pidock's showman would have done as well. Poor fellow, he 
hardly knows an ass from a mule, nor a turkey from a goose, 
but when he sees it on the table." 

Others of Goldsmith's friends entertained similar ideas with 
respect to his fitness for the task, and they were apt now and 
then to banter him on the subject, and to amuse themselves 
with his easy credulity. The custom among the natives of 
Otaheite of eating dogs being once mentioned in company. Gold- 
smith observed that a similar custom prevailed in China ; that 
a dog-butcher is as common there as any other butcher ; and 
that, when he walks abroad, all the dogs fall on him. Johnson. 
— *' That is not owing to his killing dogs ; sir, I remember a 
butcher at Litchfield, whom a dog that was in the house where 
I lived always attacked. It is the smell of carnage which 
provokes this, let the animals he has killed be what they may." 
Goldsmith. — " Yes, there is a general abhorrence in animals 
at the signs of massacre. If you put a tub full of blood into 
a stable, the horses are likely to go mad." Johnson. — "I 
doubt that." Gol<lsmith. — " Nay, sir, it is a fact well au- 
thenticated." Thrale. — " You had better prove it before you 
put it into your book on natural history. You may do it in 
my stable if you will." Johnson. — "Nay, sir, I would not 



160 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

have him prove it. If he is content to take his information 
from others, he may get through his book with little trouble, 
and without much endangering his reputation. But if he 
makes experiments for so comprehensive a book as his, there 
would be no end to them ; his erroneous assertions would fall 
then upon himself; and he might be blamed for not having 
made experiments as to every particular." 

Johnson's original prediction, however, with respect to this 
work, that Goldsmith would make it as entertaining as a 
Persian tale, was verified ; and though much of it was borrowed 
from Buffon, and but little of it written from his own observa- 
tion ; though it was by no means profound, and was chargeable 
with many errors, yet the charms of his style and the play of 
his happy disposition throughout have continued to render it 
far more popular and readable than many works on the subject 
of much greater scope and science. Cumberland was mistaken, 
however, in his notion of Goldsmith's ignorance and lack of 
observation as to the characteristics of animals. On the 
contrary, he was a minute and shrewd observer of them ; but 
he observed them with the eye of a poet and moralist as well 
as a naturalist. We quote two passages from his works illus- 
trative of this fact, and we do so the more readily because they 
are in a manner a part of his history, and give us another peep 
into his private life in the Temple ; of his mode of occupying 
himself in his lonely and apparently idle moments, and of 
another class of acquaintances which he made there. 

Speaking in his " Animated Nature " of the habitudes of 
rooks, " I have often amused myself," says he, " with observing 
their plans of policy from my window in the Temple, that 
looks upon a grove, where they have made a colony in the 
midst of a city. At the commencement of spring the rookery, 
which, during the continuance of winter, seemed to have 
been deserted, or only guarded by about five or six, like old 
soldiers in a garrison, now begins to be once more frequented ; 
and in a short time, all the bustle and hurry of business will 
be fairly commenced." 

The other passage which we take the liberty to quote at 
some length, is from an admirable paper in the " Bee," and 
relates to the house spider. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 161 

" Of all the solitary insects I have ever remarked, the 
spider is the most sagacious, and its motions to me, who have 
attentively considered them, seem almost to exceed belief. . . . 
I perceived, about four years ago, a large spider in one comer 
of my room making its web ; and, though the maid frequently 
levelled her broom against the labors of the little animal, I had 
the good fortune then to prevent its destruction, and I may say 
it more than paid me by the entertainment it afforded. 

" In three days the web was, with incredible diligence, 
completed ; nor could I avoid thinking that the insect seemed 
to*exult in its new abode. It frequently traversed it round, 
examined the strength of every part of it, retired into its hole, 
and came out very frequently. The first enemy, however, it 
had to encounter was another and a much larger spider, which, 
having no web of its own, and having probably exhausted all 
its stock in former labors of this kind, came to invade the 
property of its neighbor. Soon, then, a terrible encounter en- 
sued, in which the invader seemed to have the victory, and the 
laborious spider was obliged to take refuge in its hole. Upon 
this I perceived the victor using every art to draw the enemy 
from its stronghold. He seemed to go off, but quickly re- 
turned ; and when he found all arts in vain, began to demolish 
the new web without mercy. This brought on another battle, 
and, contrary to my expectations, the laborious spider became 
conqueror, and fairly killed his antagonist. 

" Now, then, in peaceable possession of what was justly 
its own, it waited three days with the utmost impatience, 
repairing the breaches of its web, and taking no sustenance 
that I could perceive. At last, however, a large blue fly fell 
into the snare, and struggled hard to get loose. Tlie spider 
gave it leave to entangle itself as much as possible, but it 
seemed to be too strong for the cobweb. I must own I was 
greatly surprised when I saw the spider immediately sally out, 
and in less than a minute weave a new net round its captive, 
by which the motion of its wings was stopped ; and, when it 
was fairly hampered in this manner, it was seized and dragged 
into the hole. 

" In this manner it lived, in a precarious state ; and nature 
seemed to have fitted it for such a life, for upon a single fl.y it 



162 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

subsisted for more than a week. I once put a wasp into the 
net ; but when the spider came out in order to seize it as 
usual, upon perceiving what kind of an enemy it had to deal 
with, it instantly broke all the bands that held it fast, and 
contributed all that lay in its power to disengage so formidable 
an antagonist. When the wasp was set at liberty, I expected 
the spider would have set about repairing the breaches that 
were made in its net ; but those, it seems, were irreparable : 
wherefore the cobweb was now entirely forsaken, and a new 
one begun, which was completed in the usual time. 

" I had now a mind to try how many cobwebs a single spider 
could furnish ; wherefore I destroyed this, and the insect set 
about another. When I destroyed the other also, its whole 
stock seemed entirely exhausted, and it could spin no more. 
The arts it made use of to support itself, now deprived of its 
great means of subsistence, were indeed surprising. I have 
seen it roll up its legs like a ball, and lie motionless for hours 
together, but cautiously watching all the time : when a fly 
happened to approach sufficiently near, it would dart out all at 
once, and often seize its prey. 

" Of this life, however, it soon began to grow weary, and 
resolved to invade the possession of some other spider, since it 
could not make a web of its own. It formed an attack upon a 
neighboring fortification with great vigor, and at first was as 
vigorously repulsed. Not daunted, however, with one defeat, 
in this manner it continued to lay siege to another's web for 
three days, and at length, having killed the defendant, actually 
took possession. When smaller flies happen to fall into the 
snare, the spider does not sally out at once, but very patiently 
waits till it is sure of them ; for, upon his immediately 
approaching, the terror of his appearance might give the cap- 
tive strength suflicient to get loose ; the manner, then, is to 
wait patiently, till, by ineffectual and impotent struggles, the 
captive has wasted all its strength, and then he becomes a 
certain and easy conquest. 

" The insect I am now describing lived three years ; every 
year it changed its skin and got a new set of legs. I have 
sometimes plucked off a leg, which grew again in two or three 
days. At first it dreaded my approach to its web, but at last 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 163 

it became so familiar as to take a fly out of my hand ; and, 
upon my touching any part of the web, would immediately 
leave its hole, prepared either for a defence or an attack." ^ 

CHAPTER XXVII 

Honors at the Royal Academy — Letter to his brother Maurice — 
Family fortunes — Jane Contarine and the miniature — Portraits 
and engravings — School associations — Johnson and Goldsmith in 
Westminster Abbey 

The latter part of the year 1768 had been made memorable 
in the world of taste by the institution of the Royal Academy 
of Arts, under the patronage of the King, and the direction of 
forty of the most distinguished artists, Reynolds, who had 
been mainly instrumental in founding it, had been unanimously 
elected president, and had thereupon received the honor of 
knighthood.^ Johnson was so delighted with his friend's 
elevation, that he broke through a rule of total abstinence with 
respect to wine, which he had maintained for several years, and 
drank bumpers on the occasion. Sir Joshua eagerly sought to 
associate his old and valued friends with him in his new honors, 
and it is supposed to be through his suggestions tliat, on the 
first establishment of professorships, which took place in De- 
cember, 1769, Johnson was nominated to that of Ancient 
Literature, and Goldsmith to that of History. They were 
mere honorary titles, without emolument, but gave distinction, 
from the noble institution to which they appertained. They 
also gave the possessors honorable places at the annual banquet, 
at which were assembled many of the most distinguished per- 
sons of rank and talent, all proud to be classed among the 
patrons of the arts. 

The following letter of Goldsmith to his brother alludes to 
the foregoing appointment, and to a small legacy bequeathed to 
him by his uncle Contarine, 

1 The Bee, No. iv. 

2 We must apologize for the anachronism we have permitted our- 
selves in the course of this memoir, in speaking of Reynolds as Sir 
Joshua, when treating of circumstances which occurred prior to his 
being dubbed; but it is so customary to speak of him by that title, 
that we found it difticult to dispense with it. 



164 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

" To Mr. Maurice Goldsmith, at James Lawder's, Usq., at 
Kilmore, near Carrich-on- Shannon. 

"January, 1770. 

"Dear Brother, — I should have answered your letter 
sooner, but, in truth, I am not fond of thinking of the neces- 
sities of those I love, when it is so very little in my power to 
help them. I am sorry to find you are every way unprovided 
for ; and what adds to my uneasiness is, that I have received a 
letter from my sister Johnson, by which I learn that she is 
pretty much in the same circumstances. As to myself, I believe 
I could get both you and my poor brother-in-law something like 
that which you desire, but I am determined never to ask for 
little things, nor exhaust any little interest I may have, until 
I can serve you, him, and myself more effectually. As yet, no 
opportunity has offered ; but I believe you are pretty well con- 
vinced that I will not be remiss when it arrives. 

" The king has lately been pleased to make me professor of 
Ancient History in the Royal Academy of Painting which he 
has just established, but there is no salary annexed ; and I took 
it rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit to 
myself. Honors to one in my situation are something like 
ruffles to one that wants a shirt. 

"You tell me that there are fourteen or fifteen pounds left 
me in the hands of my cousin Lawder, and you ask me what I 
would have done with them. My dear brother, I would by no 
means give any directions to my dear worthy relations at Kilmore 
how to dispose of money which is, properly speaking, more theirs 
than mine. All that I can say is, that I entirely, and this letter 
will serve to witness, give up any right and title to it ; and I 
am sure they will dispose of it to the best advantage. To them 
I entirely leave it ; whether they or you may think the whole 
necessary to fit you out, or whether our poor sister Johnson may 
not want the half, I leave entirely to their and your discretion. 
The kindness of that good couple to our shattered family de- 
mands our sincerest gratitude ; and, though they have almost 
forgotten me, yet, if good things at last arrive, I hope one day 
to return and increase their good-humor by adding to my own. 

" I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture of myself, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 165 

as I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer. I 
have ordered it to be left for her at George Faulkner's, folded in 
a letter. The face, you well know, is ugly enough, but it is 
finely painted. I will shortly also send my friends over the 
Shannon some mezzotinto prints of myself, and some more of 
my friends here, such as Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Gol- 
man. I believe I have written a hundred letters to ditierent 
friends in your country, and never received an answer to any of 
them. I do not know how to accpunt for this, or why they are 
unwilling to keep up for me those regards which I must ever 
retain for them. 

" If, then, you have a mind to oblige me, you will write often, 
whether I answer you or not. Let me particularly have the 
news of our family and old acquaintances. For instance, you 
may begin by telling me about the family where you reside, how 
they spend their time, and whether they ever make mention of 
me. Tell me about my mother, my brother Hodson and his son, 
my brother Harry's son and daughter, my sister Johnson, the 
family of Ballyoughter, what is become of them, where they 
live, and how they do. You talked of being my only brother : 
I don't understand you. Where is Charles 1 A sheet of paper 
occasionally filled with the news of this kind would make me 
very happy, and would keep you nearer my mind. As it is, my 
dear brother, believe me to be 

" Yours, most aftectionately, 

"Oliver Goldsmith." 

By this letter we find the Goldsmiths the same shifting, shift- 
less race as formerly ; a " shattered family," scrambling on each 
other's back as soon as any rise above the surface. Maurice is 
" every way unprovided for " ; living upon cousin Jane and her 
husband; and, perhaps, amusing himself by hunting otter in 
the river Inny. Sister Johnson and her husband are as poorly 
off as Maurice, with, perhaps, no one at hand to quarter them- 
selves upon ; as to the rest, " what is become of them ; where 
do they live ; how do they do ; w^hat is become of Charles ? " 
What forlorn, hap-hazard life is implied by these questions ! 
Can we wonder that, with all the love for his native place, 
which is shown throughout Goldsmith's writings, he had not 



166 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

the heart to return there? Yet his affections are still there. 
He wishes to know whether the Lawders (which means his 
cousin Jane, his early Valentine) ever make mention of him ; 
he sends Jane his miniature ; he believes "it is the most ac- 
ceptable present he can offer ; " he evidently, therefore, does 
not believe she has almost forgotten him, although he intimates 
that he does : in his memory she is still Jane Contarine, as he 
last saw her, when he accompanied her harpsichord with his 
flute. Absence, like death, sets a seal on the image of those 
we have loved ; we cannot realize the intervening changes which 
time may have effected. 

As to the rest of Goldsmith's relatives, he abandons his legacy 
of fifteen pounds, to be shared among them. It is all he has 
to give. His heedless improvidence is eating up the pay of the 
booksellers in advance. With all his literary success, he has 
neither money nor influence ; but he has empty fame, and he is 
ready to participate with them ; he is honorary professor, with- 
out pay ; his portrait is to be engraved in mezzotint, in com- 
pany with those of his friends, Burke, Reynolds, Johnson, Col- 
man, and others, and he will send prints of them to his friends 
over the Channel, though they may not have a house to hang 
them up in. What a motley letter ! How indicative of the 
motley character of the writer ! By the by, the publication of 
a splendid mezzotinto engraving of his likeness by Reynolds, 
was a great matter of glorification to Goldsmith, especially as 
it appeared in such illustrious company. As he was one day 
walking the streets in a state of high elation, from having just 
seen it figuring in the print-shop windows, he met a young 
gentleman with a newly married wife hanging on his arm, whom 
he immediately recognized for Master Bishop, one of the boys 
he had petted and treated with sweetmeats when a humble 
usher at Milner's school. The kindly feelings of old times re- 
vived, and he accosted him with cordial familiarity, though the 
youth may have found some difficulty in recognizing in the per- 
sonage, arrayed, perhaps, in garments of Tyrian dye, the dingy 
pedagogue of the Milners. " Come, my boy," cried Goldsmith, 
as if still speaking to a schoolboy, " come, Sam, I am delighted 
to see you. I must treat you to something — what shall it be 1 
Will you have some apples?" glancing at an old woman's stall; 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 167 

then, recollecting the print-shop window : "Sam," said he, "have 
you seen my picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds ? Have you seen 
it, Sam ? Have you got an engraving ? " Bishop was caught ; 
he equivocated ; he had not yet bought it ; but he was furnish- 
ing his house, and had fixed upon the place where it was to be 
hung. " Ah, Sam ! " rejoined Groldsmith reproachfully, " if your 
picture had been published, I should not have waited an hour 
without having it." 

After all, it was honest pride, not vanity, in Goldsmith, 
that was gratified at seeing his portrait deemed worthy of 
bqing perpetuated by the classic pencil of Reynolds, and " hung 
up in history " beside that of his revered friend, Johnson. 
Even the great moralist himself was not insensible to a feeling 
of this kind. Walking one day with Goldsmith, in Westmin- 
ster Abbey, among the tombs of monarchs, warriors, and states- 
men, they came to the sculptured mementos of literary worthies 
in poets' corner. Casting his eye round upon these memorials 
of genius, Johnson muttered in a low tone to his companion, 

" Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis." 

Goldsmith treasured up the intimated hope, and shortly after- 
wards, as they were passing by Temple-bar, where the heads 
of Jacobite rebels, executed for treason, were mouldering aloft 
on spikes, pointed up to the grizzly mementos, and echoed the 
intimation, 

" Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.'' ^ 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

Publication of the Deserted Village ; notices and illustrations of it 

Several years had now elapsed since the publication of 
" The Traveller," and much wonder was expressed that the 
great success of that poem had not excited the author to fur- 
ther poetic attempts. On being questioned at the annual din- 
ner of the Royal Academy by the Earl of Lisburn, why he 
neglected the Muses to compile histories and write novels, "My 



168 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Lord," replied he, " by courting the Muses I shall starve, but 
by my other labors I eat, drink, have good clothes, and can 
enjoy the luxuries of life." So, also, on being asked by a poor 
writer what was the most profitable mode of exercising the pen, 
"My dear fellow," replied he, good-humoredly, "pay no regard 
to the draggle-tailed Muses ; for my part I have found produc- 
tions in prose much more sought after and better paid for." 

Still, however, as we have heretofore shown, he found sweet 
moments of dalliance to steal away from his prosaic toils, and 
court the Muse among the green lanes and hedge-rows in the 
rural environs of London, and on the 26th of May, 1770, he 
was enabled to bring his " Deserted Village " before the public. 

The popularity of " The Traveller " had prepared the way for 
this poem, and its sale was instantaneous and immense. The 
first edition was immediately exhausted ; in a few days a second 
was issued; in a few days more a third, and by the 16th of 
August the fifth edition was hurried through the press. As is 
the case with popular writers, he had become his own rival, 
and critics were inclined to give the preference to his first 
poem ; but with the public at large we believe the " Deserted 
Village " has ever been the greatest favorite. Previous to its 
publication the bookseller gave him in advance a note for the 
price agreed upon, one hundred guineas. As the latter was 
returning home he met a friend to whom he mentioned the cir- 
cumstance, and who apparently judging of poetry by quantity 
rather than quality, observed that it was a great sum for so 
small a poem. "In truth," said Goldsmith, "I think so too; 
it is much more than the honest man can afford or the piece is 
worth. I have not been easy since I received it." In fact, he 
actually returned the note to the bookseller, and left it to him 
to graduate the payment according to the success of the work. 
The bookseller, as may well be supposed, soon repaid him in 
full with many acknowledgments of his disinterestedness. This 
anecdote has been called in question, we know not on what 
grounds ; we see nothing in it incompatible with the character 
of Goldsmith, who was very impulsive, and prone to acts of 
inconsiderate generosity. 

As we do not pretend in this siunmary memoir to go into a 
criticism or analysis of any of Goldsmith's writings, we shall 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 169 

not dwell upon the peculiar merits of this poem ; we cannot 
help noticing, however, how truly it is a mirror of the author's 
heart and of all the fond pictures of early friends and early life 
for ever present there. It seems to us as if the very last 
accounts received from home, of his "shattered family," and 
the desolation that seemed to have settled upon the haunts of 
his childhood, had cut to the roots one feebly cherished hope, 
and produced the following exquisitely tender and mournful 
lines : 

" In all my wand'rings round this world of care, 
In all my griefs — and (iod has giv'n my share — 
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, 
Amid these humble bowers to lay me down ; 
To husband out life's taper at the close, 
And keep the flame from wasting by repose ; 
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still, 
Amid the swains to show my book-learn'd skill, 
Around my fire an ev'ning group to draw, 
And tell of all I felt and all I saw ; 
And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, 
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew ; 
I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 
Here to return — and die at home at last.'''' 

How touchingly expressive are the succeeding lines, wrung 
from a heart which all the trials and temptations and buft'etings 
of the world could not render worldly ; which, amid a thousand 
follies and errors of the head, still retained its childlike inno- 
cence ; and which, doomed to struggle on to the last amidst 
the din and turmoil of the metropolis, had ever been cheating 
itself with a dream of rural quiet and seclusion : 

*' Oh bless'd retirement ! friend to life's decline, 
Retreats from care, that never must he mine. 
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, 
A youth of labor with an age of ease ; 
Who quits a world where strong temptations try, 
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly 1 
For him no wretches, born to work and weep, 
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep ; 
Nor surly porter stands, in guilty state, 
To spurn imploring famine from the gate ; 
But on he moves to meet his latter end. 
Angels around befriending virtue's friend ; 



170 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, 
While resignation gently slopes the way ; 
And all his prospects brightening to the last, 
His heaven commences ere the world be past." 



ISiOTE 

The following article, which appeared in a London periodical, 
shows the effect of Goldsmith's poem in renovating the fortunes 
of Lissoy. , 

" About three miles from Ballymahon, a very central town 
in the sister kingdom, is the mansion and village of Auburn, so 
called by their present possessor, Captain Hogan. Through 
the taste and improvement of this gentleman, it is now a 
beautiful spot, although fifteen years since it presented a very 
bare and unpoetical aspect. This, however, was owing to 
a cause which serves strongly to corroborate the assertion, that 
Goldsmith had this scene in view when he wrote his poem of 
' The Deserted Village.' The then possessor. General Napier, 
turned all his tenants out of their farms that he might inclose 
them in his own private domain. Littleton, the mansion of the 
general, stands not far off, a complete emblem of the desolating 
spirit lamented by the poet, dilapidated and converted into a 
barrack. 

" The chief object of attraction is Lissoy, once the parsonage 
house of Henry Goldsmith, that brother to whom the poet 
dedicated his ' Traveller,' and who is represented as the village 
pastor, 

" ' Passing rich with forty pounds a year.' 

" When I was in the country, the lower chambers were in- 
habited by pigs and sheep, and the drawing-rooms by oats. 
Captain Hogan, however, has, I believe, got it since into his 
possession, and has, of course, improved its condition. 

" Though at first strongly inclined to dispute the identity of 
Auburn, Lissoy House overcame my scruples. As I clambered 
over the rotten gate, and crossed the grass-grown lawn or court, 
the tide of association became too strong for casuistry : here the 
poet dwelt and wrote, and here his thoughts fondly recurred 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 171 

when composing his ' Traveller ' in a foreign land. Yonder was 
the decent church, that literally ' topped the neighboring hill.' 
Before me lay the little hill of Knockrue, on which he declares, 
in one of his letters, he ha<l rather sit with a book in hand than 
mingle in the proudest assemblies. And, above all, startlingly 
true, beneath my feet was 

" ' Yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, 

And still where many a garden-flower grows wild.' 

" A painting from the life could not be more exact. ' The 
stubborn currant-bush ' lifts its head above the rank grass, and 
the proud hollyhock flaunts where its sisters of the flower-knot 
are no more. 

" In the middle of the village stands the old ' hawthorn-tree,' 
built up with masonry to distinguish and preserve it ; it is old 
and stunted, and suffers much from the depredations of post- 
chaise travellers, who generally stop to procure a twig. Oppo- 
site to it is the village alehouse, over the door of which swings 
' The Three Jolly Pigeons.' Within every thing is arranged 
according to the letter : 

" ' The whitewash'd wall, the nicely-sanded floor, 
The varnish 'd clock that click'd behind the door : 
The chest, contrived a double debt to pay, 
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day ; 
The pictures placed for ornament and use, 
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose.' 

" Captain Hogan, I have heard, found great difficulty in ob- 
taining ' the twelve good rules,' but at length purchased them 
at some London bookstall to adorn the whitewashed parlor of 
'The Three Jolly Pigeons.' However laudable this may be, 
nothing shook my faith in the reality of Auburn so much as 
this exactness, which had the disagreeable air of being got up 
for the occasion. The last object of pilgrimage is the quondam 
habitation of the schoolmaster, 

" ' There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule.' 

It is surrounded with fragrant proofs of identity in 

" ' The blossom'd furze, unprofitably gay.' 



172 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

There is to be seen the chair of the poet, which fell into the 
hands of its present possessors at the wreck of the parsonage- 
house ; they have frequently refused large offers of purchase ; 
but more, I dare say, for the sake of drawing contributions from 
the curious than from any reverence for the bard. The chair is 
of oak, with back and seat of cane, which precluded all hopes 
of a secret drawer, like that lately discovered in Gay's. There 
is no fear of its being worn out by the devout earnestness of 
sitters — as the cocks and hens have usurped undisputed pos- 
session of it, and protest most clamorously against all attempts 
to get it cleansed or to seat one's self. 

" The controversy concerning the identity of this Auburn was 
formerly a standing theme of discussion among the learned of 
the neighborhood ; but, since the pros and cons have been all 
ascertained, the argument has died away. Its abettors plead 
the singular agreement between the local history of the place 
and the Auburn of the poem, and the exactness with which the 
scenery of the one answers to the description of the other. To 
this is opposed the mention of the nightingale, 

" ' And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made' ; 

there being no such bird in the island. The objection is 
slighted, on the other hand, by considering the passage as a 
mere poetical license. ' Besides,' say they, ' the robin is the 
Irish nightingale.' And if it be hinted how unlikely it was 
that Goldsmith should have laid the scene in a place from 
which he was and had been so long absent, the rejoinder is 
always, * Pray, sir, was Milton in hell when he built Pande- 
monium 'i ' 

" The line is naturally drawn between ; there can be no doubt 
that the poet intended England by 

" ' The land to hast'ning ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.' 

But it is very natural to suppose that, at the same time, his 
imagination had in view the scenes of his youth, which give 
such strong features of resemblance to the picture." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 173 

Best, an Irish clergyman, told Davis, the traveller in America, 
that the hawthorn-bush mentioned in the poem was still remark- 
ably large. " I was riding once," said he, " with Brady, titu- 
lar Bishop of Ardagh, when he observed to me, ' Ma foy, Best, 
this huge overgrown bush is mightily in the way. I will order 
it to be cut down.' — 'What, sir!' replied I, 'cut down the 
bush that supplies so beautiful an image in the " Deserted 
Village " ? ' — ' Ma foy ' ' exclaimed the bishop, ' is that the haw- 
thorn-bush? Then let it be sacred from the edge of the axe, 
and evil be to him that should cut off a branch.' " — The haw- 
thorn-bush, however, has long since been cut up, root and 
bralich, in furnishing relics to literary pilgrims. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

The Poet among the ladies; description of his person and manners — 
Expedition to Paris with the Horneek family — The traveller of 
twenty and the traveller of forty — Hickey, the special attorney — 
An unlucky exploit 

The " Deserted Village " had shed an additional poetic grace 
round the homely person of the author ; he was becoming more 
and more acceptable in ladies' eyes, and finding himself more 
and more at ease in their society ; at least in the society of 
those whom he met in the Reynolds circle, among whom he par- 
ticularly affected the beautiful family of the Hornecks. 

But let us see what were really the looks and manners of 
Goldsmith about this time, and what right he had to aspire to 
ladies' smiles ; and in so doing let us not take the sketches of 
Boswell and his compeers, who had a propensity to represent 
him in caricature ; but let us take the apparently truthful and 
discriminating picture of him as he appeared to Judge Day, 
when the latter was a student in the Temple. 

"In person," says the judge, "he was short ; about five feet 
five or six inches ; strong, but not heavy in make ; rather fair in 
(complexion, with brown hair ; such, at least, as could be dis- 
tinguished from his wig. His features were plain, but not 
repulsive, — certainly not so when lighted up by conversation. 
His manners were simple, natural, and perhaps on the whole, 



174 OIJVER (iOLUSMI'lil 

WO may say, not poliBhod ; ^t least without the refinement and 
ITixni lircodiii^ wliich the ex(|uiHite poh'nh of PiIh ooiripoHitioiiH 
would lead iiH to (ixpeet. Jle was always clieerf'ul and aiii- 
mntitd, often, indeed, boisterous in liis mirth ; entered with spirit 
into (convivial Ho(;i<!ty ; contributed lar/jfeJy to its cnjoynients by 
sohdity of iiiloniiatiou, and the naivetu and originality of his 
ehiiracter ; tidiied often without premeditation, and laughed 
loudly without r<'Ktraint." 

Tiiis, it will be r(!(!olleet(!d, re})r(!Hents him as he appeared to 
a young Templar, wlio j)robably saw liim only in Temple cof- 
fe(5-Jious(!S, at studcints' ()uarterK, or at th(! jovial supper parties 
given at the poet's own ehambeis ; here, of course, his mind was 
in its rough (Iress ; his laugh may have been loud and his mirth 
l)oiHt(u-ouH ; but we trust all th('-s(; matters ])e(;ame softcincd and 
modified when he found himself in polite drawing-rooms and in 
iemaht society. 

Hut wiiat s;iy the ladi(^H tliemsclves of him ; and here, fortu- 
nately, we have anothcir sketch of him, as he appeared at the 
time to one of the Horneek circle ; in fact, we believe, to the 
JcMsamy Hridc herself. Alter julniitting, apparently, with some 
relu(!tanc(!, that " he was a very plain man," she goes on to say, 
*' but had he been much more so, it was impossible not to love 
and respect his goodness of h(!art, which l)roke out on every 
occasion. His benevolence was un({uestionable, and htn coun- 
taminre hore every trace of it : no one tiiat knew him intimately 
could avoid admiring and loving his good <|ualitics." When to 
all tliis we add the idcia of intellectual delicacy and nilinement 
associated with him l)y his poetry and the newly-plucked bays 
that wen^ flourishing round his ])row, W(! cannot be surprised 
that line and fashionable ladies shouhl be proud of his atten- 
tions, and that oven a young beauty should not be altogetluT 
diMphiiised with the thoughts of having a man of his genius in 
her (thains. 

Wo are led to indidge souMi notions of the kind iVom linding 
him in the month of duly, but a lew W(M'Ics alt(!r the publica- 
tion of the " J)esert(5d Village," scitting olf on a six weeks' excur- 
sion to Paris, in company with Mrs. Horneek and her two 
bcjiutifid daughters. A djiy or two lud'on; his d(!parture, we 
lind Jinotlicr new i^ala suit ehiU'L^id to him on the books of JVIr. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 175 

William Filby. Were the bright eyes of the Jessamy Bride 
responsible for this additional extravagance of wardrobe 1 Gold- 
smith had recently been editing the works of Parnell ; had he 
taken courage from the example of Edwin in the " Fairy 
Tale"? — 

" Yet spite of all that nature did 
To make his uncouth form forbid, 

This creature dared to love. 
He felt the force of Edith's eyes, 
Nor wanted hope to gain the prize 
Could ladiea look 'within — " 

^11 this we throw out as mere hints and surmises, leaving it 
to our readers to draw their own conclusions. It will be found, 
however, that the poet was subjected to shrewd bantering among 
his contemporaries about the beautiful Mary Horneck, and that 
he was extremely sensitive on the subject. 

It was in the month of June that he set out for Paris with 
his fair companions, and the following letter was written by 
him to Sir Joshua Reynolds, soon after the party landed at 
Calais : 

" My dear Friend, 

*' We had a very quick passage from Dover to Calais, which 
we performed in three hours and twenty minutes, all of us 
extremely sea-sick, which must necessarily have happened, as 
my machine to prevent sea-sickness was not completed. We 
were glad to leave Dover, because we hated to be imposed upon ; 
so were in high spirits at coming to Calais, where we were told 
that a little money would go a great way. 

" Upon landing, with two little trunks, which was all we 
carried with us, we were surprised to see fourteen or fifteen 
fellows all running down to the ship to lay their hands upon 
them ; four got under each trunk, the rest surrounded and held 
the hasps ; and in this manner our little baggage was conducted, 
with a kind of funeral solemnity, till it was safely lodged at the 
custom-house. We were well enough pleased with the people's 
civility till they came to be paid ; every creature that had the 
happiness of but touching our trunks with their finger expected 
sixpence ; and they had so pretty and civil a manner of demand- 
ing it, that there was no refusing them. 



176 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

" When we had done with the porters, we had next to speak 
with the custom-house officers, who had their pretty civil way 
too. We were directed to the Hotel d'Angleterre, where a 
valet-de-place came to offer his service, and spoke to me ten 
minutes before I once found out that he was speaking English. 
We had no occasion for his services, so we gave him a little 
money because he spoke English, and because he wanted it. I 
cannot help mentioning another circumstance : I bought a new 
riband for my wig at Canterbury, and the barber at Calais 
broke it in order to gain sixpence by buying me a new one." 

An incident which occurred in the course of this tour has 
been tortured by that literary magpie, Boswell, into a proof of 
Goldsmith's absurd jealousy of any admiration shown to others 
in his presence. While stopping at a hotel in Lisle, they were 
drawn to the windows by a military parade in front. The ex- 
treme beauty of the Miss Hornecks immediately attracted the 
attention of the officers, who broke forth with enthusiastic 
speeches and compliments intended for their ears. Goldsmith 
was amused for a while, but at length affected impatience at 
this exclusive admiration of his beautiful companions, and 
exclaimed, with mock severity of aspect, "Elsewhere I also 
would have my admirers." 

It is difficult to conceive the obtuseness of intellect necessary 
to misconstrue so obvious a piece of mock petulance and dry 
humor into an instance of mortified vanity and jealous self-conceit. 

Goldsmith jealous of the admiration of a group of gay officers 
for the charms of two beautiful young women ! This even out- 
Boswells Boswell ; yet this is but one of several similar absurdi- 
ties, evidently misconceptions of Goldsmith's peculiar vein of 
humor, by which the charge of envious jealousy has been 
attempted to be fixed upon him. In the present instance 
it was contradicted by one of the ladies herself, who was 
annoyed that it had been advanced against him. " I am sure," 
said she, " from the peculiar manner of his humor, and assumed 
frown of countenance, what was often uttered in jest was mis- 
taken, by those who did not know him, for earnest." No one 
was more prone to err on this point than Boswell. He had a 
tolerable perception of wit, but none of humor. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 177 

The following letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds was subsequently- 
written : 

" To Sir Joshua Reynolds 

"Paris, July 29, (1770.) 

" My dear Friend, — I began a long letter to you from 
Lisle, giving a description of all that we had done and seen, 
but, finding it very dull, and knowing that you would show it 
again, I threw it aside and it was lost. You see by the top of 
this letter that we are at Paris, and (as I have often heard you 
say) we have brought our own amusement with us, for the 
Ig^ies do not seem to be very fond of what we have yet seen. 

" With regard to myself, I find that travelling at twenty 
and forty are very different things. I set out with all my con- 
firmed habits about me, and can find nothing on the Continent 
so good as when I formerly left it. One of our chief amuse- 
ments here is scolding at every thing we meet with, and prais- 
ing everything and every person we left at home. You may 
judge, therefore, whether your name is not frequently bandied 
at table among us. To tell you the truth, I never thought I 
could regret your absence so much as our various mortifications 
on the road have often taught me to do. I could tell you of 
disasters and adventures without number ; of our lying in barns, 
and of my being half poisoned with a dish of green peas ; of our 
quarrelling with postilions, and being cheated by our land- 
ladies ; but I reserve all this for a happy hour which I expect 
to share with you upon my return. 

" I have little to tell you more but that we are at present all 
well, and expect returning when we have stayed out one month, 
which I did not care if it were over this very day. I long to 
hear from you all, how you yourself do, how Johnson, Burke, 
Dyer, Chamier, Colman, and every one of the club do. I wish 
I could send you some amusement in this letter, but I protest 
I am so stupefied by the air of this country (for I am sure it 
cannot be natural) that I have not a word to say. I have been 
thinking of the plot of a comedy, which shall be entitled ' A 
Journey to Paris,' in which a family shall be introduced with a 
full intention of going to France to save money. You know 
there is not a place in the world more promising for that pur- 



178 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

pose. As for the meat of this country, I can scarce eat it ; 
and, though we pay two good shillings a head for our dinner, I 
find it all so tough that I have spent less time with my knife 
than my picktooth. I said this as a good thing at the table, 
but it was not understood. I believe it to be a good thing. 

"As for our intended journey to Devonshire, I find it out of 
my power to perform it ; for, as soon as I arrive at Dover, I in- 
tend to let the ladies go on, and I will take a country lodging 
somewhere near that place in order to do some business. I 
have so outrun the constable that I must mortify a little to 
bring it up again. For God's sake, the night you receive this, 
take your pen in your hand and tell me something about your- 
self and myself, if you know any thing that has happened. 
About Miss Reynolds, about Mr. Bickerstaff, my nephew, or 
any body that you regard. I beg you will send to Griffin the 
bookseller to know if there be any letters left for me, and be so 
good as to send them to me at Paris. They may perhaps be 
left for me at the Porter's Lodge, opposite the pump in Temple 
Lane. The same messenger will do. I expect one from Lord 
Clare, from Ireland. As for the others, I am not much uneasy 
about. 

" Is there any thing I can do for you at Paris ? I wish you 
would tell me. The whole of my own purchases here is one 
silk coat, which I have put on, and which makes me look like a 
fool. But no more of that. I find that Colman has gained his 
lawsuit. I am glad of it. I suppose you often meet. I will 
soon be among you, better pleased with my situation at home 
than I ever was before. And yet I must say, that if any thing 
could make France pleasant, the very good women with whom 
I am at present would certainly do it. I could say more about 
that, but I intend showing them the letter before I send it 
away. What signifies teasing you longer with moral observa- 
tions, when the business of my writing is over? I have one 
thing only more to say, and of that I think every hour in the 
day, namely that I am your most sincere and most affectionate 
friend, 

"Olivee Goldsmith. 

" Direct to me at the Hotel de Daneraarc, 
Rue Jacob, Fauxbourg St. Germains." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 179 

A word of comment on this letter : 

Travelling is, indeed, a very different thing with Goldsmith 
the poor student at twenty, and Goldsmith the poet and pro- 
fessor at forty. At twenty, though obliged to trudge on foot 
from town to town, and country to country, paying for a supper 
and a bed by a tune on the flute, every thing pleased, every thing 
was good ; a truckle bed in a garret was a couch of down, and 
the homely fare of the peasant a feast fit for an epicure. Now, 
at forty, when he posts through the country in a carriage, with 
fair ladies by his side, every thing goes wrong : he has to 
quarrel with postilions, he is cheated by landladies, the hotels 
jR-e barns, the meat is too tough to be eaten, and he is half 
poisoned by green peas ! A line in his letter explains the 
secret : " the ladies do not seem to be very fond of what we 
have yet seen." " One of our chief amusements is scolding at 
every thing we meet with, and praising every thing and every 
person we have left at home ! " the true English travelling 
amusement. Poor Goldsmith ! he has " all his confirmed 
habits about him " ; that is to say, he has recently risen into 
high life, and acquired high-bred notions ; he must be fastidious 
like his fellow-travellers ; he dare not be pleased with what 
pleased the vulgar tastes of his youth. He is unconsciously 
illustrating the trait so humorously satirized by him in Bill 
Tibbs,^ the shabby beau, who can find " no such dressing as 
he had at Lord Crump's or Lady Crimp's " ; whose very senses 
have grown genteel, and who no longer " smacks at wretched 
wine or praises detestable custard." A lurking thorn, too, is 
worrying him throughout this tour; he has "outrun the con- 
stable " ; that is to say, his expenses have outrun his means, 
and he will have to make up for this butterfly flight by toiling 
like a grub on his return. 

Another circumstance contributes to mar the pleasure he 
had promised himself in this excursion. At Paris the party is 
unexpectedly joined by a Mr. Hickey, a bustling attorney, who 
is well acquainted with that metropolis and its environs, and 
insists on playing the cicerone on all occasions. He and Gold- 
smith do not relish each other, and they have several petty 
altercations. The lawyer is too much a man of business and 

1 Citizen of the World, Letter Ixxi. 



180 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

method for the careless poet, and is disposed to manage every 
thing. He has perceived Goldsmith's whimsical peculiarities 
without properly appreciating his merits, and is prone to in- 
dulge in broad bantering and raillery at his expense, particu- 
larly irksome if indulged in presence of the ladies. He makes 
himself merry on his return to England, by giving the following 
anecdote as illustrative of Goldsmith's vanity : 

" Being with a party at Versailles, viewing the waterworks, 
a question arose among the gentlemen present, whether the 
distance from whence they stood to one of the little islands 
was within the compass of a leap. Goldsmith maintained the 
affirmative ; but, being bantered on the subject, and remember- 
ing his former prowess as a youth, attempted the leap, but, 
falling short, descended into the water, to the great amusement 
of the company." 

Was the Jessamy Bride a witness of this unlucky exploit ? 

This same Hickey is the one of whom Goldsmith, sometime 
subsequently, gave a good-humored sketch, in his poem of 
" The Retaliation." 

" Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature, 
And slander itself must allow him good nature ; 
He cherish'd his friend, and he relish'd a bumper, 
Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper. 
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser ; 
I answer No, no, for he always was wiser ; 
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly fiat, 
His very worst foe can't accuse him of that ; 
Perhaps he confided in men as they go. 
And so was too foolishly honest ? Ah, no ! 
Then what was his failing ? Come, tell it, and burn ye — 
He was, could he help it ? a special attorney." 

One of the few remarks extant made by Goldsmith during 
his tour is the following, of whimsical import, in his " Ani- 
mated Nature." 

" In going through the towns of France, some time since, 
I could not help observing how much plainer their parrots 
spoke than ours, and how very distinctly I understood their 
parrots speak French, when I could not understand our own, 
though they spoke my native language. I at first ascribed 
it to the difierent qualities of the two languages, and was 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH , 181 

for entering into an elalDorate discussion on the vowels and 
consonants ; but a friend that was with me solved the difficulty 
at once, by assuring me that the French women scarce did any 
thing else the whole day than sit and instruct their feathered 
pupils ; and that the birds were thus distinct in their lessons 
in consequence of continual schooling." 

His tour does not seem to have left in his memory the most 
fragrant recollections ; for, being asked, after his return, 
whether travelling on the Continent repaid "an Englishman 
for the privations and annoyances attendant on it," he replied, 
" I recommend it by all means to the sick, if they are without 
tlSk sense of smelling, and to the poor if they are without the 
sense of feeling ; and to both if they can discharge from their 
minds all idea of what in England we term comfort." 

It is needless to say, that the universal improvement in the 
art of living on the Continent has at the present day taken 
away the force of Goldsmith's reply, though even at the time it 
was more humorous than correct. 



CHAPTER XXX 

Death of Goldsmith's mother — Biography of Parnell — Agreement 
with Davies for the History of Rome — Life of Bolinghroke — The 
Haunch of Venison 

On his return to England, Goldsmith received the melan- 
choly tidings of the death of his mother. Notwithstanding the 
fame as an author to which he had attained, she seems to have 
been disappointed in her early expectations from him. Like 
others of his family, she had been more vexed by his early 
follies than pleased by his proofs of genius ; and in subsequent 
years, when he had risen to fame and to intercourse with the 
great, had been annoyed at the ignorance of the world and 
want of management, which prevented him from pushing his 
fortune. He had always, however, been an affectionate son, 
and in the latter years of her life, when she had become blind, 
contributed from his precarious resources to prevent her from 
feeling want. 

He now resumed the labors of the pen, which his recent 



182 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

excursion to Paris rendered doubly necessary. We should have 
mentioned a "Life of Parnell," published by him shortly after 
the "Deserted Village." It was, as usual, a piece of job-work, 
hastily got up for pocket-money. Johnson spoke slightingly of 
it, and the author, himself, thought proper to apologize for its 
meagreness ; yet, in so doing, used a simile, which for beauty 
of imagery and felicity of language, is enough of itself to stamp 
a value upon the essay. 

"Such," says he, "is the very unpoetical detail of the life 
of a poet. Some dates and some few facts, scarcely more inter- 
esting than those that make the ornaments of a country tomb- 
stone, are all that remain of one whose labors now begin 
to excite universal curiosity. A poet, while living, is seldom 
an object sufficiently great to attract much attention ; his real 
merits are known but to a few, and these are generally sparing 
in their praises. When his fame is increased by time, it is 
then too late to investigate the peculiarities of his disposition ; 
the dews of morning are past, and we vainly try to continue 
the chase hy the meridian splendor. ^^ 

He now entered into an agreement with Davies, to prepare 
an abridgment in one volume duodecimo, of his " History of 
Rome " ; but first to write a work for which there was a more 
immediate demand. Davies was about to republish Lord Bol- 
ingbroke's "Dissertation on Parties," which he conceived 
would be exceedingly applicable to the affairs of the day, and 
make a probable hit during the existing state of violent politi- 
cal excitement ; to give it still greater effect and currency he 
engaged Goldsmith to introduce it with a prefatory life of Lord 
Bolingbroke. 

About this time Goldsmith's friend and countryman, Lord 
Clare, w^as in great affliction, caused by the death of his only 
son. Colonel Nugent, and stood in need of the sympathies of a 
kind-hearted friend. At his request, therefore, Goldsmith paid 
him a visit at his noble seat of Gosford, taking his tasks with 
him. Davies was in a worry lest Gosford Park should prove a 
Capua to the poet, and the time be lost. " Dr. Goldsmith," 
writes he to a friend, "has gone with Lord Clare into the 
country, and I am plagued to get the proofs from him of the 
' Life of Lord Bolingbroke.' " The proofs, however, were fur- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 183 

nished in time for the publication of the work in December. 
The " Biography," though written during a time of pohtical 
turmoil, and introducing a work intended to be thrown into 
the arena of politics, maintained that freedom from party prej- 
udice observable in all the writings of Goldsmith. It was a 
selection of facts, drawn from many unreadable sources, and 
arranged into a clear, flowing narrative, illustrative of the 
career and character of one, who, as he intimates, " seemed 
formed by nature to take delight in struggling with opposition ; 
whose most agreeable hours were passed in storms of his own 
creating; whose life was spent in a continual conflict of politics, 
and* as if that was too short for the combat, has left his mem- 
ory as a subject of lasting contention." The sum received by 
the author for this memoir is supposed, from circumstances, to 
have been forty pounds. 

Goldsmith did not find the residence among the great un- 
attended with mortifications. He had now become accustomed 
to be regarded in London as a literary lion, and was annoyed, 
at what he considered a slight, on the part of Lord Camden. 
He complained of it on his return to town at a party of his 
friends. "I met him," said he, "at Lord Clare's house in the 
country ; and he took no more notice of me than if I had been 
an ordinary man." " The company," says Boswell, " laughed 
heartily at this piece of ' diverting simplicity.' " And foremost 
among the laughers was doubtless the rattle-pated Boswell. 
Johnson, however, stepped forward, as usual, to defend the 
poet, whom he would allow no one to assail but himself ; per- 
haps in the present instance he thought the dignity of literature 
itself involved in the question. "Nay, gentlemen," roared he, 
" Dr. Goldsmith is in the right. A nobleman ought to have 
made up to such a man as Goldsmith, and I think it is much 
against Lord Camden that he neglected him." 

After Goldsmith's return to town he received from Lord 
Clare a present of game, which he has celebrated and perpetu- 
ated in his amusing verses entitled the " Haunch of Venison." 
Some of the lines pleasantly set forth the embarrassment caused 
by the appearance of such an aristocratic delicacy in the 
humble kitchen of a poet, accustomed to look up to mutton as 
a treat : 



184 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

" Thanks, my lord, for your venison ; for finer or fatter 
Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter : 
The haunch was a picture for painters to study, 
The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy; 
Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting, 
To spoil such a delicate picture by eating : 
I had thought in my chambers to place it in view. 
To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtu ; 
As in some Irish houses where things are so-so, 
One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show ; 
But, for eating a rasher, of what they take pride in. 
They'd as soon think of eating the pan it was fry'd in. 



But hang it — to poets, who seldom can eat, 
Your very good mutton's a very good treat ; 
Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt ; 
Ws like sending them 7'uffles, when wanting a shirt.'''' 



We have an amusing anecdote of one of Goldsmith's blunders 
which took place on a subsequent visit to Lord Clare's, when 
that nobleman was residing in Bath. 

Lord Clare and the Duke of Northumberland had houses 
next to each other, of similar architecture. Returning home 
one morning from an early walk, Goldsmith, in one of his fre- 
quent fits of absence, mistook the house, and walked up into 
the duke's dining-room, where he and the duchess were about 
to sit down to breakfast. Goldsmith, still supposing himself 
in the house of Lord Clare, and that they were visitors, made 
them an easy salutation, being acquainted with them, and 
threw himself on a sofa in the lounging manner of a man per- 
fectly at home. The duke and duchess soon perceived his 
mistake, and, while they smiled internally, endeavored, with 
the considerateness of well-bred people, to prevent any awkward 
embarrassment. They accordingly chatted sociably with him 
about matters in Bath, until, breakfast being served, they in- 
vited him to partake. The truth at once flashed upon poor 
heedless Goldsmith ; he started up from his free-and-eas]^ posi- 
tion, made a confused apology for his blunder, and would have 
retired perfectly disconcerted, had not the duke and duchess 
treated the whole as a lucky occurrence to throw him in their 
way, and exacted a promise from him to dine with them. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 185 

This may be hung up as a companion-piece to his blunder on 
his first visit to Northumberland House. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

Dinner at the Royal Academy — The Rowley controversy — Horace 
Walpole's conduct to Chatterton — Johnson at Redcliffe Church — 
Goldsmith's History of England — Davies's criticism — Letter to 
Bennet Langton. 

On St. George's day of this year (1771), the first annual 
banquet of the Royal Academy was held in the exhibition 
room ; the walls of which were covered with works of art, 
about to be submitted to public inspection. Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, who first suggested this elegant festival, presided in his 
official character ; Drs. Johnson and Goldsmith, of course, were 
present, as professors of the academy; and, besides the acade- 
micians, there was a large number of the most distinguished 
men of the day as guests. Goldsmith on this occasion drew on 
himself the attention of the company by launching out with 
enthusiasm on the poems recently given to the world by Chat- 
terton, as the works of an ancient author by the name of 
Rowley, discovered in the tower of Redcliffe Church, at Bristol. 
Goldsmith spoke of them with rapture, as a treasure of old 
English poetry. This immediately raised the question of their 
authenticity ; they having been pronounced a forgery of Chat- 
terton 's. Goldsmith was warm for their being genuine. When 
he considered, he said, the merit of the poetry ; the acquaintance 
with life and the human heart displayed in them, the antique 
quaintness of the language and the familiar knowledge of his- 
torical events of their supposed day, he could not believe it pos- 
sible they could be the work of a boy of sixteen, of narrow 
education, and confined to the duties of an attorney's office. 
They must be the productions of Rowley. 

Johnson, who was a stout unbeliever in Rowley, as he had 
been in Ossian, rolled in his chair and laughed at the enthusi- 
asm of Goldsmith. Horace Walpole, who sat near by, joined 
in the laugh and jeer as soon as he found that the " trouvaille" 
as he called it, "of his friend Chatterton" was in question. 



186 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

This matter, which had excited the simple admiration of Gold- 
smith, was no novelty to him, he said. " He might, had he 
pleased, have had the honor of ushering the great discovery to 
the learned world." And so he might, had he followed his lirst 
impulse in the matter, for he himself had been an original be- 
liever ; had pronounced some specimen verses sent to him by 
Chatterton wonderful for their harmony and spirit ; and had 
been ready to print them and publish them to the world with 
his sanction. When he found, however, that his unknown cor- 
respondent was a mere boy, humble in sphere and indigent in 
circumstances, and when Gray and Mason pronounced the 
poems forgeries, he had changed his whole conduct towards the 
unfortunate author, and by his neglect and coldness had dashed 
all his sanguine hopes to the ground. 

Exulting in his superior discernment, this cold-hearted man 
of society now went on to divert himself, as he says, with the 
credulity of Goldsmith, whom he was accustomed to pronounce 
" an inspired idiot " ; but his mirth was soon dashed, for on 
asking the poet what had become of this Chatterton, he was 
answered, doubtless in the feeling tone of one who had experi- 
enced the pangs of despondent genius, that " he had been to 
London, and had destroyed himself." 

The reply struck a pang of self-reproach even to the cold 
heart of Walpole ; a faint blush may have visited his cheek at 
his recent levity. " The persons of honor and veracity who 
were present," said he in after years, when he found it neces- 
sary to exculpate himself from the charge of heartless neglect 
of genius, "will attest with what surprise and concern I thus 
first heard of his death." Well might he feel concern. His 
cold neglect had doubtless contributed to madden the spirit of 
that youthful genius, and hurry him towards his untimely end ; 
nor have all the excuses and palliations of Walpole's friends and 
admirers been ever able entirely to clear this stigma from his 
fame. 

But what was there in the enthusiasm and credulity of 
honest Goldsmith in this matter, to subject him to the laugh of 
Johnson or the raillery of Walpole ? Granting the poems were 
not ancient, were they not good ? Granting they were not the 
productions of Rowley, were they the less admirable for being 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 187 

the productions of Chatterton ? Johnson himself testified to 
their merits and the genius of their composer, when, some years 
afterwards, he visited the tower of Redcliffe Church, and was 
shown the coffer in which poor Chatterton had pretended to find 
them. " This," said he, "is the most extraordinary young man 
that has encountered my knowledge. It is wonderful how the 
whelp has ivritten such thing s^ 

As to Goldsmith, he persisted in his credulity, and had sub- 
sequently a dispute with Dr. Percy on the subject, which inter- 
rupted and almost destroyed their friendship. After all, his 
enthusiasm was of a generous, poetic kind ; the poems remain 
beatrtiful monuments of genius, and it is even now difficult to 
persuade one's self that they could be entirely the productions 
of a youth of sixteen. 

In the month of August was published anonymously the 
"History of England," on which Goldsmith had been for some 
time employed. It was in four volumes, compiled chiefly, as he 
acknowledged in the preface, from Rapin, Carle, Smollett, and 
Hume, "each of whom," says he, "have their admirers, in pro- 
portion as the reader is studious of political antiquities, fond 
of minute anecdote, a warm partisan, or a deliberate reasoner." 
It possessed the same kind of merit as his other historical com- 
pilations ; a clear, succinct narrative, a simple, easy, and grace- 
ful style, and an agreeable arrangement of facts ; but was not 
remarkable for either depth of observation or minute accuracy 
of research. Many passages were transferred, with little if any 
alteration, from his " Letters from a Nobleman to his Son " on 
the same subject. The work, though written without party feel- 
ing, met with sharp animadversions from political scribblers. The 
writer was charged with being unfriendly to liberty, disposed to 
elevate monarchy above its proper sphere ; a tool of ministers ; 
one who would betray his country for a pension. Tom Davies, 
the publisher, the pompous little bibliopole of Russell-street, 
alarmed lest the book should prove unsaleable, undertook to 
protect it by his pen, and wrote a long article in its defence in 
The Public Advertiser. He was vain of his critical effusion, 
and sought by nods and winks and innuendoes to intimate his 
authorship. " Have you seen," said he in a letter to a friend, 
" ' An Impartial Account of Goldsmith's History of England ' 1 



188 .. OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

If you want to know who was the writer of it, you will find 
him in Russell-street ; — hut mum I " 

The history, on the whole, however, was well received ; some 
of the critics declared that English history had never before 
been so 'usefully, so elegantly, and agreeably epitomized, "and, 
like his other historical writings, it has kept its ground" in 
English literature. 

Goldsmith had intended this summer, in company with Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, to pay a visit to Bennet Langton, at his seat 
in Lincolnshire, where he was settled in domestic life, having 
the year previously married the Countess Dowager of Rothes. 
The following letter, however, dated from his chambers in the 
Temple, on the 7th of September, apologizes for putting off the 
visit, while it gives an amusing account of his summer occupa- 
tions and of the attacks of the critics on his " History of 
England " : 

"My dear Sir, 

" Since I had the pleasure of seeing you last, T have been 
almost wholly in the country, at a farmer's house, quite alone, 
trying to write a comedy. It is now finished ; but when or 
how it will be acted, or whether it will be acted at all, are 
questions I cannot resolve. I am therefore so much employed 
upon that, that I am under the necessity of putting ofi* my in- 
tended visit to Lincolnshire for this season. Reynolds is just 
returned from Paris, and finds himself now in the case of a 
truant that must make up for his idle time by diligence. We 
have therefore agreed to postpone our journey till next summer, 
when we hope to have the honor of waiting upon Lady Rothes 
and you, and staying double the time of our late intended 
visit. We often meet, and never without remembering you. 
I see Mr. Beauclerc very often both in town and country. He 
is now going directly forward to become a second Boyle : deep 
in chemistry and physics. Johnson has been down on a visit 
to a country parson. Doctor Taylor ; and is returned to his old 
haunts at Mrs. Thrale's. Burke is a farmer, en attendant a 
better place ; but visiting about too. Every soul is visiting 
about and merry but myself. And that is hard too, as I have 
been trying these three months to do something to make people 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 189 

laugh. There have I been strolling about the hedges, studying, 
jests with a most tragical countenance. The ' Natural History ' 
is about half finished, and I will shortly finish the rest. God 
knows I am tired of this kind of finishing, which is but bun- 
gling work ; and that not so much my fault as the fault of my 
scurvy circumstances. They begin to talk in town of the 
Opposition's gaining ground; the cry of liberty is still as loud 
as ever. I have published, or Davies has published for me, an 
' Abridgment of the History of England,' for which I have been 
a good deal abused in the newspapers, for betraying the liber- 
ties of the people. God knows I had no thought for or against 
libeiiy in my head ; my whole aim being to make up a book of 
a decent size, that, as 'Squire Richard, says, would do no harm 
to nohody. However, they set me down as an arrant Tory, and 
consequently an honest man. When you come to look at any 
part of it, you'll say that I am a sore Whig. God bless you, 
and with my most respectful compliments to her Ladyship, I 
remain, dear Sir, your most affectionate humble servant, 

^ "Oliver Goldsmith." 



CHAPTER XXXII 

Marriage of Little Comedy — Goldsmith at Barton — Practical jokes at 
the expense of his toilet — Amusements at Barton — Aquatic misad- 
venture 

Though Goldsmith found it impossible to break from his 
literary occupations to visit Bennet Langton, in Lincolnshire, 
he soon yielded to attractions from another quarter, in which 
somewhat of sentiment may have mingled. Miss Catherine 
Horneck, one of his beautiful fellow-travellers, otherwise called 
Little Comedy, had been married in August to Henry William 
Bunbury, Esq., a gentleman of fortune, who has become cele- 
l)rated for the humorous productions of his pencil. Goldsmith 
was shortly afterwards invited to pay the newly married couple 
a visit at their seat, at Barton, in Suffolk. How could he re- 
sist such an invitation — especially as the Jessamy Bride would, 
of course, be among the guests 1 It is true, he was hampered 
with work ; he was still more hampered with debt ; his accounts 



190 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

with Newbery were perplexed ; but all must give way. New 
advances are procured from Newbery, on the promise of a new 
tale in the style of the " Vicar of Wakefield," of which he 
showed him a few roughly-sketched chapters ; so, his purse 
replenished in the old way, "by hook or by crook," he posted 
off to visit the bride at Barton. He found there a joyous house- 
hold, and one where he was welcomed with affection. Garrick 
was there, and played the part of master of the revels, for he 
was an intimate friend of the master of the house. Notwith- 
standing early misunderstandings, a social intercourse between 
the actor and the poet had grown up of late, from meeting to- 
gether continually in the same circle. A few particulars have 
reached us concerning Goldsmith while on this happy visit. We 
believe the legend has come down from Miss Mary Horneck her- 
self. " While at Barton," she says, " his manners were always 
playful and amusing, taking the lead in promoting any scheme 
of innocent mirth, and usually prefacing the invitation with 
'Come, now, let us play the fool a little.' At cards, which was 
commonly a round game, and the stake small, he was always 
the most noisy, affected great eagerness to win, and teased his 
opponents of the gentler sex with continual jest and banter on 
their want of spirit in not risking the hazards of the game. 
But one of his most favorite enjoyments was to romp with the 
children, when he threw off all reserve, and seemed one of th6 
most joyous of the group. 

" One of the means by which he amused us was his songs, 
chiefly of the comic kind, which were sung with some taste and 
humor; several, I believe, were of his own composition, and I 
regret that I neither have copies, which might have been 
readily procured from him at the time, nor do I remember 
their names." 

His perfect good-humor made him the object of tricks of all 
kinds ; often in retaliation of some prank which he himself 
had played off. Unluckily, these tricks were sometimes made 
at the expense of his toilet, which, with a view peradventure to 
please the eye of a certain fair lady, he had again enriched to 
the impoverishment of his purse. " Being at all times gay in 
his dress," says this ladylike legend, " he made his appearance 
at the breakfast-table in a smart black silk coat with an expen- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 191 

sive pair of ruffles ; the coat some one contrived to soil, and it 
was sent to be cleansed ; but, either by accident, or probably 
by design, the day after it came home, the sleeves became 
daubed with paint, which was not discovered until the ruffles 
also, to his great mortification, were irretrievably disfigured. 

" He always wore a wig, a peculiarity which those who judge 
of his appearance only from the fine poetical head of Reynolds 
would not suspect ; and on one occasion some person contrived 
seriously to injure this important adjunct to dress. It was the 
only one he had in the country, and the misfortune seemed irrepa- 
rable until the services of Mr. Bunbury's valet were called in, 
who, however, performed his functions so indifferently, that poor 
Goldsmith's appearance became the signal for a general smile." 

This was wicked waggery, especially when it was directed to 
mar all the attempts of the unfortunate poet to improve his 
personal appearance, about which Jie was at all times dubiously 
sensitive, and particularly when among the ladies. 

We have in a former chapter recorded his unlucky tumble 
into a fountain at Versailles, when attempting a feat of agility 
in presence of the fair Hornecks. Water was destined to be 
equally baneful to him on the present occasion. " Some differ- 
ence of opinion," says the fair narrator, " having arisen with 
Lord Harrington respecting the depth of a pond, the poet re- 
marked that it was not so deep but that, if any thing valuable 
was to be found at the bottom, he would not hesitate to pick 
it up. His lordship, after some banter, threw in a guinea ; 
Goldsmith, not to be outdone in this kind of bravado, in 
attempting to fulfil his promise without getting wet, accidentally 
fell in, to the amusement of all present, but persevered, brought 
out the money, and kept it, remarking that he had abundant 
objects on whom to bestow any farther proofs of his lordship^s 
whim or bounty." 

All this is recorded by the beautiful Mary Horneck, the 
Jessamy Bride herself; but while she gives these amusing 
pictures of poor Goldsmith's eccentricities, and of the mis- 
chievous pranks played off upon him, she bears unqualified 
testimony, which we have quoted elsewhere, to the qualities of 
his head and heart, which shone forth in his countenance, and 
gained him the love of all who knew him. 



192 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Among the circumstances of this visit vaguely called to mind 
by this fair lady in after years, was that Goldsmith read to her 
and her sister the first part of a novel which he had in hand. 
It was doubtless the manuscript mentioned at the beginning of 
this chapter, on which he had obtained an advance of money 
from Newbery to stave off some pressing debts, and to provide 
funds for this very visit. It never was finished. The book- 
seller, when he came afterwards to examine the manuscript, ob- 
jected to it as a mere narrative version of the " Good-natured 
Man." Goldsmith, too easily put out of conceit of his writings, 
threw it aside, forgetting that this was the very Newbery 
who kept his " Vicar of Wakefield " by him nearly two years 
through doubts of its success. The loss of the manuscript is 
deeply to be regretted ; it doubtless would have been properly 
wrought up before given to the press, and might have given us 
new scenes in life and traits, of character, while it could not fail 
to bear traces of his delightful style. What a pity he had not 
been guided by the opinions of his fair listeners at Barton, 
instead of that of the astute Mr. Newbery ! 

CHAPTER XXXIII 

Dinner at General Oglethorpe's — Anecdotes of the general — Dispute 
about duelling — Ghost stories 

We have mentioned old General Oglethorpe as one of Gold- 
smith's aristocratical acquaintances. This veteran, born in 
1698, had commenced life early, by serving, when a mere strip- 
ling, under Prince Eugene, against the Turks. He had 
continued in military life, and been promoted to the rank of 
major-general in 1745, and received a command daring the 
Scottish rebellion. Being of strong Jacobite tendencies, he was 
suspected and accused of favoring the rebels ; and though ac- 
quitted by a court of inquiry, was never afterwards employed ; 
or, in technical language, was shelved. He had since been 
repeatedly a member of parliament, and had always distinguished 
himself by learning, taste, active benevolence, and high Tory 
principles. His name, however, has become historical, chiefly 
from his transactions in America, and the share he took in the 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 193 

settlement of the colony of Georgia. It lies embalmed in 
honorable immortality in a single line of Pope's : 

" One, driven hy strong benevolence of soul, 
Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole." i 

The veteran was novp" seventy-four years of age, but healthy 
and vigorous, and as much the preux chevalier as in his younger 
days, wlien he served with Prince Eugene. His table was often 
the gathering-place of men of talent. Johnson was frequently 
there, and delighted in drawing from the general details of his 
various "experiences." He was anxious that he should give 
the world his life. " I know no man," said he, " whose life 
would be more interesting." Still the vivacity of the general's 
mind and the variety of his knowledge made him skip from 
subject to subject too fast for the lexicographer. " Oglethorpe," 
growled he, " never completes what he has to say." 

Boswell gives us an interesting and characteristic account of 
a dinner party at the general's (April 10th, 1772), at which 
Goldsmith and Johnson were present. After dinner, when the 
cloth was removed, Oglethorpe, at Johnson's request, gave an 
account of the siege of Belgrade, in the true veteran style. 
Pouring a little wine upon the table, he drew his lines and 
parallels with a wet finger, describing the positions of the op- 
posing forces. "Here were we — here were the Turks," to all 
which Johnson listened with the most earnest attention, poring 
over the plans and diagrams with his usual purblind closeness. 

In the course of conversation the general gave an anecdote of 
himself in early life, when serving under Prince Eugene. Sit- 
ting at table once in company with a prince of Wurtemberg, 
the latter gave a fillip to a glass of wine, so as to make some 
of it fly in Oglethorpe's face. The manner in which it was 
done was somewhat equivocal. How was it to be taken by the 
stripling officer? If seriously, he must challenge the prince; 
but in so doing he might fix on himself the character of a draw- 
cansir. If passed over without notice, he might be charged 
with cowardice. His mind was made up in an instant. 

1 Pope's imitation of the Second Epistle of the Second Book of 
Horace, lines 276, 277. 



194 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

"Prince," said he, smiling, "that is an excellent joke ; but we 
do it much better in England." So saying, he threw a whole 
glass of wine in the prince's face. " II a bien fait, mon prince," 
cried an old general present, "vous I'avez commence." (He 
has done right, my prince; you commenced it.) The prince 
had the good sense to acquiesce in the decision of the veteran, 
and Oglethorpe's retort in kind was taken in good part. 

It was probably at the close of this story that the officious 
Boswell, ever anxious to promote conversation for the benefit of 
his note-book, started the question whether duelling were con- 
sistent with moral duty. The old general fired up in an instant. 
" Undoubtedly," said he, with a lofty air ; " undoubtedly a man 
has a right to defend his honor." Goldsmith immediately 
carried the w\ar into Boswell's own quarters, and pinned him 
with the question, " what he would do if affronted 1 " The 
pliant Boswell, who for the moment had the fear of the general 
rather than of Johnson before liis eyes, replied, "he should 
think it necessary to fight." "Why, then, that solves the 
question," replied Goldsmith. " No, sir ! " thundered out 
Johnson ; "it does not follow that what a man would do, is 
therefore right." He, however, subsequently went into a dis- 
cussion to show that there were necessities in the case arising 
out of the artificial refinement of society, and its proscription of 
any one who should put up with an affront without fighting a 
duel. " He then," concluded he, " who fights a duel does not 
fight from passion against his antagonist, but out of self-defence, 
to avert the stigma of the world, and to prevent himself from 
being driven out of society. I could wish there were not that 
superfluity of refinement ; but while such notions prevail, no 
doubt a man may lawfully fight a duel." 

Another question started was, whether people who disagreed 
on a capital point could live together in friendship. Johnson 
said they might. Goldsmith said they could not, as they had 
not the idem velle atque idem nolle — the same likings and 
aversions. Johnson rejoined, that they must shun the subject 
on which they disagreed. " But, sir," said Goldsmith, " when 
people live together who have something as to which they dis- 
agree, and which they want to shun, they will be in the situation 
mentioned in the story of Blue Beard : ' you may look into all 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 195 

the chambers but one ; ' but we should have the greatest incli- 
nation to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject." 
'' Sir," thundered Johnson, in a loud voice, " I am not saying 
that you could live in friendship with a man from whom 
you differ as to some point ; I am only saying that / could 
do it." 

Who will not say that Goldsmith had the best of this petty 
contest ? How just was his remark ! how felicitous the illus- 
tration of the blue chamber ! how rude and overbearing was 
the argumentum ad hominem of Johnson, when he felt that he 
had the worst of the argument ! 

* The conversation turned upon ghosts. General Oglethorpe 
told the story of a Colonel Prendergast, an officer in the Duke 
of Marlborough's army, who predicted among his comrades that 
he should die on a certain day. The battle of Malplaquet took 
place on that day. The colonel was in the midst of it, but 
came out unhurt. The firing had reased, and his brother 
officers jested with him about the fallacy of his prediction. 
" The day is not over," replied he, gravely ; " I shall die not- 
withstanding what you see." His words proved true. The 
order for a cessation of firing had not reached one of the French 
batteries, and a random shot from it killed the colonel on the 
spot. Among his effects was found a pocket-book in which he 
had made a solemn entry, that Sir John Friend, who had been 
executed for high treason, had appeared to him, either in a dream 
or vision, and predicted that he would meet him on a certain 
day (the very day of the battle). Colonel Cecil, who took 
possession of the effects of Colonel Prendergast, and read the 
entry in the pocket-book, told this story to Pope, the poet, in 
the presence of General Oglethorpe. 

This story, as related by the general, appears to have been 
well received, if not credited, by both Johnson and Goldsmith, 
each of whom had something to relate in kind. Goldsmith's 
brother, the clergyman in whom he had such implicit confidence, 
had assured him of his having seen an apparition. Johnson 
also had a friend, old Mr. Cave, the printer, at St. John's Gate, 
" an honest man, and a sensible man," who told him he had 
seen a ghost : he did not, however, like to talk of it, and seemed 
to be in great horror whenever it was mentioned. " And pray, 



196 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

sir," asked Boswell, "what did he say was the appearance?" 
" Why, sir, something of a shadowy being." 

The reader will not be surprised at this superstitious turn in 
the conversation of such intelligent men, when he recollects that, 
but a few years before this time, all London had been agitated 
by the absurd story of the Cocklane ghost ; a matter which 
Dr. Johnson had deemed worthy of his serious investigation, 
and about which Goldsmith had written a pamphlet. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

Mr. Joseph Cradock — An author's confidings — An amanuensis — Life 
at Edgeware — Goldsmith conjuring — George Colman — The Fan- 
toccini 

Among the agreeable acquaintances made by Goldsmith about 
this time was a Mr. Joseph Cradock, a young gentleman of 
Leicestershire, living at his ease, but disposed to "make him- 
self uneasy " by meddling with literature and the theatre ; in 
fact, he had a passion for plays and players, and had come up 
to town with a modified translation of Voltaire's tragedy of 
" Zobeide," in a view to get it acted. There was no great diffi- 
culty in the case, as he was a man of fortune, had letters of 
introduction to persons of note, and was altogether in a differ- 
ent position from the indigent man of genius wiiom managers 
might harass with impunity. Goldsmith met him at the house 
■ of Yates, the actor, and finding that he was a friend of Lord 
Clare, soon became sociable with him. Mutual tastes quick- 
ened the intimacy, especially as they found means of serving 
each other. Goldsmith ^vrote an epilogue for the tragedy of 
"Zobeide"; and Cradock, who was an amateur musician, ar- 
ranged the music for the " Threnodia Augustalis," a lament on 
the death of the Princess Dowager of Wales, the political mis- 
tress and patron of Lord Clare, which Goldsmith had thrown 
off hastily to please that nobleman. The tragedy was played 
with some success at Covent-Garden ; the " Lament " was re- 
cited and sung at Mrs. Cornelys' rooms — a very fashionable 
resort in Soho Square, got up by a woman of enterprise of that 
name. It was in whimsical parody of those gay and somewhat 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 197 

promiscuous assemblages that Goldsmith used to call the mot- 
ley evening parties at his lodgings "little Cornelys." 

The " Threnodia Augustalis " was not publicly known to be 
by Goldsmith until several years after his death. 

Cradock was one of the few polite intimates who felt more 
disposed to sympathize with the generous qualities of the poet 
than to sport with his eccentricities. He sought his society 
whenever he came to town, and occasionally had him to his seat 
in the country. Goldsmith appreciated his sympathy, and un- 
burthened himself to him without reserve. Seeing the lettered 
ease in which this amateur author was enabled to live, and the 
time he could bestow on the elaboration of a manuscript, " Ah ! 
Mr. Cradock," cried he, " think of me, that must write a volume 
every month ! " He complained to him of the attempts made 
by inferior writers, and by others who could scarcely come under 
that denomination, not only to abuse and depreciate his writings, 
but to render him ridiculous as a man ; perverting every harm- 
less sentiment and action into charges of absurdity, malice, or 
folly. " Sir," said he, in the fulness of his heart, "I am as a 
lion baited by curs ! " 

Another acquaintance, which he made about this time, was a 
young countryman of the name of M'Donnell, whom he met in 
a state of destitution, and, of course, befriended. The following 
grateful recollections of his kindness and his merits were fur- 
nished by that person in after years : 

"It was in the year 1772," writes he, "that the death of 
my elder brother — when in London, on my way to Ireland — 
left me in a most forlorn sit\Jktion ; I was then about eighteen ; 
I possessed neither friends nor money, nor the means of getting 
to Ireland, of which or of England I knew scarcely any thing, 
from having so long resided in France. In this situation I had 
strolled about for two or three days, considering what to do, 
but unable to come to any determination, when Providence di- 
rected me to the Temple Gardens. I threw myself on a seat, 
and, willing to forget my miseries for a moment, drew out a 
book ; that book was a volume of Boileau. I had not been 
there long when a gentleman, strolling about, passed near me, 
and observing, perhaps, something Irish or foreign in my garb 
or countenance, addressed me : ' Sir, you seem studious ; I hope 



198 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

you find this a favorable place to pursue it.' ' Not very studi- 
ous, sir ; I fear it is the want of society that brings me hither ; 
I am solitary and unknown in this metropolis ; ' and a passage 
from Cicero — ' Oratio pro Archia ' — occurring to me, I quoted 
it ; ' Hsec studia pronoctant nobiscum, perigrinantur, rustican- 
tur.' ' You are a scholar, too, sir, I perceive.' ' A piece of one, 
sir ; but I ought still to have been in the college where I had 
the good fortune to pick up the little I know.' A good deal of 
conversation ensued ; I told him part of my history, and he, in 
return, gave his address in the Temple, desiring me to call soon, 
from which, to my infinite surprise and gratification, I found 
that the person who thus seemed to take an interest in my fate 
was my countryman, and a distinguished ornament of letters. 

" I did not fail to keep the appointment, and was received 
in the kindest manner. He told me, smilingly, that he was 
not rich ; that he could do little for me in direct pecuniary aid, 
but would endeavor to put me in the way of doing something 
for myself; observing, that he could at least furnish me with 
advice not wholly useless to a young man placed in the heart 
of a great metropolis. ' In London,' he continued, ' nothing 
is to be got for nothing : you must work ; and no man who 
chooses to be industrious need be under obligations to another, 
for here labor of every kind commands its reward. If you 
think proper to assist me occasionally as amanuensis, I shall 
be obliged, and you will be placed under no obligation, until 
something more permanent can be secured for you.' This 
employment, which I pursued for some time, was to translate 
passages from Buffbn, which were abridged or altered, according 
to circumstances, for his natural history." 

Groldsmith's literary tasks were fast getting ahead of him, 
and he began now to " toil after them in vain." 

Five volumes of the natural history here spoken of had long 
since been paid for by Mr. Griffin, yet most of them were still 
to be written. His young amanuensis bears testimony to his 
embarrassments and perplexities, but to the degree of equa- 
nimity with which he bore them : 

"It has been said," observes he, "that he was irritable. 
Such may have been the case at times ; nay, I believe it was 
so j for what with the continual pursuit of authors, printers, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 199 

and booksellers, and occasional pecuniary embarrassments, few 
could have avoided exhibiting similar marks of impatience. 
But it was never so towards me. I saw him only in his bland 
and kind moods, with a flow, perhaps an overflow, of the milk of 
human kindness for all who were in any manner dependent 
upon him. I looked upon him with awe and veneration, and 
he upon me as a kind parent upon a child. 

*' His manner and address exhibited much frankness and 
cordiality, particularly to those with whom he possessed any 
degree of intimacy. His good-nature was equally apparent. 
You could not dislike the man, although several of his follies 
an4 foibles you might be tempted to condemn. He was gener- 
ous and inconsiderate : money with him had little value." 

To escape from many of the tormentors just alluded to, and 
to devote himself without interruption to his task. Goldsmith 
took lodgings for the summer at a farm-house near the six-mile 
stone on the Edge ware road, and carried down his books in 
two return post-chaises. He used to say he believed the 
farmer's family thought him an odd character, similar to that 
in which the Spectator appeared to his landlady and her 
children : he was The Gentleman. Boswell tells us that he 
went to visit him at the place in company with Mickle, trans- 
lator of the " Lusiad." Goldsmith was not at home. Having 
a curiosity to see his apartment, however, they went in, and 
found curious scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled upon 
the wall with a black lead pencil. 

The farm-house in question is still in existence, though much 
altered. It stands upon a gentle eminence in Hyde Lane, 
commanding a pleasant prospect towards Hendon. The room 
is still pointed out in which " She Stoops to Conquer " was 
written ; a convenient and airy apartment, up one flight of 
stairs. 

Some matter of fact traditions concerning the author were 
furnished, a few years since, by a son of the farmer, who was 
sixteen years of age at the time Goldsmith resided with his 
father. Though he had engaged to board with the family his 
meals were generally sent to him in his room, in which he 
passed the most of his time, negligently dressed, with his shirt 
collar open, busily engaged in writing. Sometimes, probably 



200 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

when in moods of composition, he would wander into the 
kitchen, without noticing any one, stand musing with his 
"back to the fire, and then hurry off again to his room, no 
doubt to commit to paper some thought wliich had struck him. 

Sometimes he strolled about the fields, or was to be seen 
loitering and reading and musing under the hedges. He was 
subject to fits of wakefulness and read much in bed; if not 
disposed to read, he still kept the candle burning; if he wished 
to extinguish it, and it was out of his reach, he flung his 
slipper at it, which would be found in the morning near the 
overturned candlestick and daubed with grease. He was noted 
here, as every where else, for his charitable feelings. No beg- 
gar applied to him in vain, and he evinced on all occasions 
great commiseration for the poor. 

He had the use of the parlor to receive and entertain com- 
pany, and was visited by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hugh Boyd, 
the reputed author of "Junius," Sir William Chambers, and 
other distinguished characters. He gave occasionally, though 
rarely, a dinner party ; and on one occasion, when his guests 
were detained by a thunder shower, he got up a dance, and 
carried the merriment late into the night. 

As usual, he was the promoter of hilarity among the young, 
and at one time took the children of the house to see a com- 
pany of strolling players at Hendon. The greatest amusement 
to the party, however, was derived from his own jokes on the 
road and his comments on the performance, which produced 
infinite laughter among his youthful companions. 

Near to his rural retreat at Edgeware, a Mr. Seguin, an 
Irish merchant, of literary tastes, had country quarters for his 
family, where Goldsmith was always welcome. 

In this family he would indulge in playful and even gro- 
tesque humor, and was ready for any thing — conversation, music, 
or a game of romps. He prided himself upon his dancing, and 
would walk a minuet with Mrs. Seguin, to the infinite amuse- 
ment of herself and the children, whose shouts of laughter he 
bore with perfect good-humor. He would sing Irish songs, and 
the Scotch ballad of " Johnny Armstrong." He took the lead 
in the children's sports of blind man's buff, hunt the slipper, &c., 
or in their games at cards, and was the most noisy of the party, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 201 

affecting to cheat and to be excessively eager to win ; while 
with children of smaller size he would turn the hind part of his 
wig before, and play all kinds of tricks to amuse them. 

One word as to his musical skill and his performance on the 
flute, which comes up so invariably in all his fireside revels. 
He really knew nothing of music scientifically ; he had a good 
ear, and may have played sweetly ; but we are told he could 
not read a note of music. Roubillac, the statuary, once played 
a trick upon him in this respect. He pretended to score down 
an air as the poet played it, but put down crotchets and semi- 
breves at random. When he had finished, Goldsmith cast his 
eyes over it and pronounced it correct ! It is possible that his 
execution in music was like his style in writing ; in sweetness 
and melody he may have snatched a grace beyond the reach of 
art! 

He was at all times a capital companion for children, and 
knew how to fall in with their humors. " I little thought," 
said Miss Hawkins, the woman grown, "what I should liave 
to boast, when Goldsmith taught me to play Jack and Jill by 
two bits of paper on his fingers." He entertained Mrs. Garrick, 
we are told, with a whole budget of stories and songs ; delivered 
the " Chimney Sweep " with exquisite taste as a solo ; and per- 
formed a duet with Garrick of " Old Rose and Burn the Bellows." 

" I was only five years old," says the late George Colman, 
" when Goldsmith one evening when drinking coffee with my 
father, took me on his knee and began to play with me, which 
amiable act I returned with a very smart slap in the face ; it 
must have been a tingler, for I left the marks of my little spiteful 
paw upon his cheek. This infantile outrage was followed by 
summary justice, and I was locked up by my father in an ad- 
joining room, to undergo solitary imprisonment in the dark. 
Here I began to howl and scream most abominably. At length 
a friend appeared to extricate me from jeopardy ; it was the 
good-natured doctor himself, with a lighted candle in his hand, 
and a smile upon his countenance, which was still partially red 
from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and sobbed, and he 
fondled and soothed until I began to brighten. He seized the 
propitious moment, placed three hats upon the carpet, and a 
shilling under each ; the shillings, he told me, were England, 



202 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

France, and Spain. ' Hey, presto, cockolorum ! ' cried the 
doctor, and, lo ! on uncovering the shillings, they were all found 
congregated under one. I was no politician at the time, and 
therefore might not have wondered at the sudden revolution 
which brought England, France, and Spain all under one crown : 
but, as I was also no conjurer, it amazed me beyond measure. 
From that time, whenever the doctor came to visit my father, 

" ' I pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile ; ' 

a game of romps constantly ensued, and we were always cordial 
friends and merry playfellows." 

Although Goldsmith made the Edgeware farm-house his head- 
quarters for the summer, he would absent himself for weeks at 
a time on visits to Mr. Cradock, Lord Clare, and Mr. Langton, 
at their country-seats. He would often visit town, also, to 
dine and partake of the public amusements. On one occasion 
he accompanied Edmund Burke to witness a performance of 
the Italian Fantoccini or Puppets, in Panton-street ; an exhibi- 
tion which had hit the caprice of the town, and was in great 
vogue. The puppets were set in motion by wires, so well con- 
cealed as to be with difficulty detected. Boswell, with his usual 
obtuseness with respect to Goldsmith, accuses him of being 
jealous of the puppets! "When Burke," said he, "praised 
the dexterity with which one of them tossed a pike, 'Pshaw,' 
said Goldsmith with some warmth, ' I can do it better myself.' " 
" The same evening," adds Boswell, "when supping at Burke's 
lodgings, he broke his shin by attempting to exhibit to the 
company how much better he could jump over a stick than the 
puppets." 

Goldsmith jealous of puppets ! This even passes in absurd- 
ity Boswell's charge upon him of being jealous of the beauty 
of the two Miss Hornecks. 

The Panton-street puppets were destined to be a source of 
further amusement to the town, and of annoyance to the little 
autocrat of the stage. Foote, the Aristophanes of the English 
drama, who was always on the alert to turn every subject of 
popular excitement to account, seeing the success of the Fantoc- 
cini, gave out that he should produce a Primitive Puppet-show 
at the Haymarket, to be entitled " The Handsome Chamber- 



OLIVEK GOLDSMITH 203 

maid, or Piety in Pattens " : intended to burlesque the senti- 
mental comedy which Garrick still maintained at Drury-Lane. 
The idea of a play to be performed in a regular theatre by 
puppets, excited the curiosity and talk of the town. "Will 
your puppets be as large as life, Mr. Foote ? " demanded a lady 
of rank. "Oh, no, my lady"; replied Foote, ^^ not much 
larger than Garrick:^ 



CHAPTER XXXV 

Broken health — Dissipation and debts — The Irish widow — Practical 
jokes — Scrub — A misquoted pun — Malagrida — Goldsraitli proved 
to be a fool — Distressed ballad singers — The Poet at Ranelagh 

Goldsmith returned to town in the autumn (1772), with 
his health much disordered. His close fits of sedentary applica- 
tion, during which he in a manner tied himself to the mast, 
had laid the seeds of a lurking malady in his system, and pro- 
duced a severe illness in the course of the summer. Town life 
was not favorable to the health either of body or mind. He 
could not resist the siren voice of temptation, which, now that 
he had become a notoriety, assailed him on every side. Accord- 
ingly we find him launching away in a career of social dissipa- 
tion ; dining and supping out ; at clubs, at routs, at theatres ; 
he is a guest with Johnson at the Thrales', and an object of 
Mrs. Thrale's lively saUies ; he is a lion at Mrs. Vesey's and 
Mrs. Montagu's, where some of the high-bred blue-stockings 
pronounce him a "wild genius," and others, peradventure, 
a " wild Irishman." In the meantime his pecuniary difficulties 
are increasing upon him, conflicting with his proneness to pleasure 
and expense, and contributing by the harassment of his mind 
to the wear and tear of his constitution. His "Animated 
Nature," though not finished, has been entirely paid for, and 
the money spent. The money advanced by Garrick on New- 
bery's note, still hangs over him as a debt. The tale on which 
ISTewbery had loaned from two to three hundred pounds previous 
to the excursion to Barton, has proved a failure. The book- 
seller is urgent for the settlement of his complicated account ; 
the perplexed author has nothing to offer him in liquidation 



204 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

but the copyright of the comedy which he has in his portfolio ; 
" Though to tell you the truth, Frank," said he, " there are 
great doubts of its success." The offer was accepted, and, like 
bargains wrung from Goldsmith in times of emergency, turned 
out a golden speculation to the bookseller. 

In this way Goldsmith went on " overrunning the constable," 
as he termed it ; spending every thing in advance ; working 
with overtasked head and weary heart to pay for past pleasures 
and past extravagance, and at the same time incurring new 
debts, to perpetuate his struggles and darken his future pros- 
pects. While the excitement of society and the excitement of 
composition conspire to keep up a feverishness of the system, 
he has incurred an unfortunate habit of quacking himself with 
James's powders, a fashionable panacea of the day. 

A farce, produced this year by Gar rick, and entitled " The 
Irish Widow," perpetuates the memory of practical jokes played 
off a year or two previously upon the alleged vanity of poor, 
simple-hearted Goldsmith. He was one evening at the house 
of his friend Burke, when he was beset by a tenth muse, an 
Irish widow and authoress, just arrived from Ireland, full 
of brogue and blunders, and poetic fire and rantipole gentility. 
She was soliciting subscriptions for her poems ; and assailed 
Goldsmith for his patronage; the great Goldsmith — her 
countryman, and of course her friend. She overpowered him 
with eulogiums on his own poems, and then read some of her 
own, with vehemence of tone and gesture, appealing continually 
to the great Goldsmith to know how he relished them. 

Poor Goldsmith did all that a kind-hearted and gallant 
gentleman could do in such a case ; he praised her poems as far 
as the stomach of his sense would permit : perhaps a little 
further ; he offered her his subscription, and it was not until 
she had retired with many parting compliments to the great 
Goldsmith, that he pronounced the poetry which had been 
inflicted on him execrable. The whole scene had been a hoax 
got up by Burke for the amusement of his company, and the 
Irish widow, so admirably performed, had been personated by 
a Mrs. Balfour, a lady of his connection, of great sprightliness 
and talent. 

We see nothing in the story to establish the alleged vanity 



OLIVER GOLDSiNIITH 205 

of Goldsmith, but we think it tells rather to the disadvantage 
of Burke; being unwarrantable under their relations of friend- 
ship, and a species of waggery quite beneath his genius. 

Croker, in his notes to Boswell, gives another of these prac- 
tical jokes perpetrated by Burke at the expense of Goldsmith's 
credulity. It was related to Croker by Colonel 'Moore, of 
Cloghan Castle, in Ireland, who was a party concerned. The 
Colonel and Burke, walking one day through Leicester Square 
on their way to Sir Joshua Reynolds's, with whom they were 
to dine, observed Goldsmith, who was likewise to be a guest, 
standing and regarding a crowd which was staring and shout- 
ing at some foreign ladies in the window of a hotel, " Observe 
Goldsmith," said Burke to O'Moore, "and mark what passes 
between us at Sir Joshua's." They passed on and reached 
there before him. Burke received Goldsmith with affected 
reserve and coldness : being pressed to explain the reason, 
" Really," said he, "I am ashamed to keep company with a 
person who could act as you have just done in the Square." 
Goldsmith protested he was ignorant of what was meant. 
"Why," said Burke, " did you not exclaim as you were looking 
up at those women, what stupid beasts the crowd must be for 
staring with such admiration at those painted Jezebels, while a 
man of your talents passed by unnoticed ? " " Surely, surely, 
my dear friend," cried Goldsmith, with alarm, "surely I did 
not say so?" "Nay," replied Burke, "if you had not said 
so, how should I have known it ? " " That's true," answered 
Goldsmith, "I am very sorry — it was very foolish : / do recol- 
lect that something of the kind passed through my mind, hut 
I did not think I had uttered itJ^ 

It is proper to observe that these jokes were played off by 
Burke before he had attained the full eminence of his social 
position, and that he may have felt privileged to take liberties 
with Goldsmith as his countryman and college associate. It is 
evident, however, that the peculiarities of the latter, and his 
guileless simplicity, made him a butt for the broad waggery 
of some of his associates ; while others more polished, though 
equally perfidious, are on the watch to give currency to his 
bulls and blunders. 

The Stratford jubilee, in honor of Shakspeare, where Boswell 



206 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

had made a fool of himself, was still in every one's mind. It 
was sportively suggested that a fete should be held at Litch- 
field in honor of Johnson and Garrick, and that the " Beaux' 
Stratagem " should be played by the members of the Literary 
Club. "Then," exclaimed Goldsmith, "I shall certainly 
play Scrub. I should like of all things to try my hand at that 
character." The unwary speech, which any one else might 
have made without comment, has been thought worthy of 
record as whimsically characteristic. Beauclerc was extremely 
apt to circulate anecdotes at his expense, founded perhaps on 
some trivial incident, but dressed up with the embellishments 
of his sarcastic brain. One relates to a venerable dish of peas, 
served up at Sir Joshua's table, which should have been green, 
but were any other color, A wag suggested to Goldsmith, in 
a whisper, that they should be sent to Hammersmith, as that 
was the way to turn-em-green (Turnham-Green). Goldsmith, 
delighted with the pun, endeavored to repeat it at Burke's 
table, but missed the point. " That is the way to make 'em 
green," said he. Nobody laughed. He perceived he was at 
fault. " I mean that is the road to turn 'em green." A dead 
pause and a stare ; " whereupon," adds Beauclerc, " he started 
up disconcerted and abruptly left the table." This is evidently 
one of Beauclerc's caricatures. 

On another occasion the poet and Beauclerc were seated at 
the theatre next to Lord Shelburne, the minister, whom politi- 
cal writers thought proper to nickname Malagrida. " Do you 
know," said Goldsmith to his lordship, in the course of conver- 
sation, "that I never could conceive why they call you Mala- 
grida, for Malagrida was a very good sort of man." This 
was too good a trip of the tongue for Beauclerc to let pass : 
he serves it up in his next letter to Lord Charlemont, as a 
specimen of a mode of turning a thought the wrong way, pecul- 
iar to the poet ; he makes merry over it with his witty and 
sarcastic compeer, Horace Walpole, who pronounces it " a 
picture of Goldsmith's whole life." Dr. Johnson alone, when 
he hears it bandied about as Goldsmith's last blunder, growls 
forth a friendly defence : " Sir," said he, " it was a mere 
blunder in emphasis. He meant to say, I wonder they should 
use Malagrida as a term of reproach." Poor Goldsmith ! On 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 207 

such points he was ever doomed to be misinterpreted. Rogers, 
the poet, meeting in times long subsequent with a survivor 
from those days, asked him what Goldsmith really was in con- 
versation. The old conventional character was too deeply 
stamped in the memory of the veteran to be effaced. " Sir," 
replied the old wiseacre, " he was a fool. The right word 
never came to him. If you gave him back a bad shilling, he'd 
say, Why it's as good a shilling as ever was horn. You know 
he ought to have said coined. Coined, sir, never entered his 
head. He was a fool, sir." 

We have so many anecdotes in which Goldsmith's simplicity 
is "played upon, that it is quite a treat to meet with one in 
which he is represented playing upon the simplicity of others, 
especially when the victim of his joke is the " Great Cham " 
himself, whom all others are disposed to hold so much in awe. 
Goldsmith and Johnson were supping cosily together at a 
tavern in Dean-street, Soho, kept by Jack Roberts, a singer at 
Drury-lane, and a prott^gd of Garrick's. Johnson delighted in 
these gastronomical tete-k-tetes, and was expatiating in high 
good humor on a dish of rumps and kidneys, the veins of his 
forehead swelling with the ardor of mastication. " These," 
said he, "are pretty little things ; but a man must eat a great 
many of them before he is filled." "Aye; but how many of 
them," asked Goldsmith, with affected simplicity, " would reach 
to the moon ? " "To the moon ! Ah, sir, that, I fear, exceeds 
your calculation." " Not at all, sir ; I think I could tell." 
" Pray, then, sir, let us hear." " Why, sir, one, if it ivere 
long enough ! " Johnson growled for a time at finding himself 
caught in such a trite schoolboy trap. " Well, sir," cried he 
at length, " I have deserved it. I should not have provoked so 
foolish an answer by so foolish a question." 

Among the many incidents related as illustrative of Gold- 
smith's vanity and envy is one which occurred one evening 
when he was in a drawing-room with a party of ladies, and a 
ballad-singer under the window struck up his favorite song of 
" Sally Salisbury." " How miserably this woman sings ! " 
exclaimed he. "Pray, doctor^" said the lady of the house, 
" could you do it better ? " " Yes, madam, and the company 
shall be judges." The company, of course, prepared to be 



208 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

entertained by an absurdity ; but their smiles were well nigh 
turned to tears, for he acquitted himself with a skill and pathos 
that drew universal applause. He had, in fact, a delicate ear 
for music, which had been jarred by the false notes of the 
ballad-singer; and there were certain pathetic ballads, asso- 
ciated with recollections of his childhood, which were sure 
to touch the springs of his heart. We have another story of 
him, connected with ballad-singing, which is still more charac- 
teristic. He was one evening at the house of Sir William 
Chambers, in Berners-street, seated at a whist-table with Sir 
William, Lady Chambers, and Baretti, when all at once he 
threw down his cards, hurried out of the room and into the 
street. He returned in an instant, resumed his seat, and the 
game went on. Sir William, after a little hesitation, ventured 
to ask the cause of his retreat, fearing he had been overcome by 
the heat of the room. " Not at all," replied Goldsmith ; " but 
in truth I could not bear to hear that unfortunate woman in 
the street, half singing, half sobbing, for such tones could only 
arise from the extremity of distress ; her voice grated painfully 
on my ear and jarred my frame, so that I could not rest until I 
had sent her away." It was in fact a poor ballad-singer whose 
cracked voice had been heard by others of the party, but with- 
out having the same effect on their sensibilities. It was the 
reality of his fictitious scene in the story of the " Man in Bfack " ; 
wherein he describes a woman in rags, with one child in her 
arms and another on her back, attempting to sing ballads, but 
with such a mournful voice that it was difficult to determine 
whether she was singing or crying. " A wretch," he adds, 
"who, in the deepest distress, still aimed at good-humor, was 
an object my friend was by no means capable of withstanding." 
The Man in Black gave the poor woman all that he had — 
a bundle of matches.^ Goldsmith, it is probable, sent his 
ballad-singer away rejoicing, with all the money in his pocket. 

Ranelagh was at that time greatly in vogue as a place of 
public entertainment. It was situated near Chelsea ; the prin- 
cipal room was a rotunda of great dimensions, with an orches- 
tra in the centre, and tiers of boxes all round. It was a place 
to which Johnson resorted occasionally. " I am a great friend 

1 Citizen of the World, Letter xxvi. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 209 

to public amusements," said he, "for they keep people from 
vice." ^ Goldsmith was equally a friend to them, though per- 
haps not altogether on such moral grounds. He was particu- 
larly fond of masquerades, which were then exceedingly popular, 
and got up at Ranelagh with great expense and magnificence. 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, who had likewise a taste for such amuse- 
ments, was sometimes his companion, at other times he went 
alone ; his peculiarities of person and manner would soon betray 
him, whatever might be his disguise, and he would be singled 
out by wags, acquainted with his foibles, and more successful 
than himself in maintaining their incognito, as a capital sub- 
ject to be played upon. Some, pretending not to know him, 
would decry his writings, and praise those of his contempo- 
raries ; others would laud his verses to the skies, but purposely 
misquote and burlesque them ; others would annoy him with 
parodies ; while one young lady, whom he was teasing, as he 
supposed, with great success and infinite humor, silenced his 
rather boisterous laughter by quoting his own line about " the 
loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind." ^ On one occasion he 
was absolutely driven out of the house by the persevering jokes 
of a wag, whose complete disguise gave him no means of 
retaliation. 

His name appearing in the newspapers among the distin- 
guished persons present at one of these amusements, his old 
enemy, Kenrick, immediately addressed to him a copy of anony- 
mous verses, to the following purport. 

To Dr. Goldsmith ; on seeing his name in the list of mum- 
mers at the late masquerade : 

" How widely different, Goldsmith, are the ways 
Of Doctors now, and those of ancient days ! 

1 " Alas, sir! " said Johnson, speaking, when in another mood, of 
grand houses, fine gardens, and splendid places of public amusement; 
" alas, sir! these are only struggles for happiness. When I first entered 
Ranelagh it gave an expansion and gay sensation to my mind, such 
as I never experienced anywhere else. But, as Xerxes wept when he 
viewed his immense army, and considered that not one of that great 
multitude would be alive a hundred years afterwards, so it went to my 
heart to consider that there was not one in all that brilliant circle that 
was not afraid to go home and think." 

2 From the Deserted Village, line 122. 



210 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Theirs taught the truth in academic shades, 
Ours in lewd hops and midnight masquerades. 
So changed the times ! say, philosophic sage, 
Whose genius suits so well this tasteful age, 
Is the Pantheon, late a sink obscene, 
Become the fountain of chaste Hippocrene ? 
Or do thy moral numbers quaintly flow, 
Inspired by th' Aganippe of Soho ? 
Do wisdom's sons gorge cates and vermicelli, 
Like beastly Bickerstaff or bothering Kelly ? 
Or art thou tired of th' undeserved applause, 
Bestowed on bards affecting Virtue's cause ? 
Is this the good that makes the humble vain, 
The good philosophy should not disdain ? 
If so, let pride dissemble all it can, 
A modern sage is still much less than man." 

Goldsmith was keenly sensitive to attacks of the kind, and 
meeting Kenrick at the Chapter Cotfee-honse, called him to 
sharp account for taking such a liberty with his name, and 
calling his morals in question, merely on account of his being 
seen at a place of general resort and amusement. Kenrick 
shuffled and sneaked, protesting that he meant nothing deroga- 
tory to his private character. Goldsmith let him know, how- 
ever, that he was aware of his having more than once indulged 
in attacks of this dastard kind, and intimated that another such 
outrage would be followed by personal chastisement. 

Kenrick having played the craven in his presence, avenged 
himself as soon as he was gone by complaining of his having 
made a wanton attack upon him, and by making coarse com- 
ments upon his writings, conversation, and person. 

The scurrilous satire of Kenrick, however unmerited, may 
have checked Goldsmith's taste for masquerades. Sir Joshua 
Eeynolds, calling on the poet one morning, found him walking 
about his room in somewhat of a reverie, kicking a bundle of 
clothes before him like a foot-ball. It proved to be an expen- 
sive masquerade dress, which he said he had been fool enough 
to purchase, and as there was no other way of getting the worth 
of his money, he was trying to take it out in exercise. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 211 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

Invitation to Christmas — Tlie sprins-volvet coat — The haymaking 
wig — The niiscliances of loo — The lair culprit — A dance with 
the Jessamy Bride 

From the foverisli dissipations of town, Goldsmith is sum- 
moned awiiy to partake of the genial dissipations of the country. 
In the month of December, a letter from Mrs. Bunbury invites 
him down to Barton, to pass the Christmas holi(Uiys. The 
letter is written in the usual playful vein which marks his in- 
teffjourse with this charming family. He is to come in his 
"smart sj)ring- velvet coat," to bring a new wig to dance with 
the iiaymakers in, and above all, to follow the advice of herself 
and her sister (the Jessamy Bride) in playing loo. This letter, 
which plays so archly, yet kindly, with some of poor Goldsmith's 
peculiaiities, and bespeaks such real ladylike regard fpr him, 
requires a word or two of annotation. The spring-velvet suit 
alluded to, appears to have been a gallant adornment (some- 
what in the style of the famous bloom-colored coat), in which 
Goldsmith had figured in the preceding month of May — the 
season of blossoms — for, on the 21st of that month, we find 
the following entry in the chronicle of Mr. William Filby, 
tailor: To your blue velvet suit, £'2\ 10s. 9d. Also, about 
tiie same time, a suit of livery and a crimson collar for the serv- 
ing man. Again we hold the Jessamy Bride responsible for this 
gorgeous splendor of wardrobe. 

The new wig no doubt is a bag-wig and solitaire, still highly 
the mode, and in which Goldsmith is represented as figuring 
when in full dress, equipped with his sword. 

As to the dancing with the haymakers, we presume it alludes 
to some gambol of the poet, in the course of his former visit 
to Barton ; when he ranged the fields and lawns a chartered 
libertine, and tumbled into the fish-ponds. 

As to the suggestions about loo, they are in sportive allusion 
to the doctor's mode of playing that game in their merry even- 
ing parties ; affecting the desperate gambler and easy dupe ; 
running counter to all rule ; making extravagant ventures ; re- 
proaching all others with cowardice ; dashing at all hazards at 
the pool, and getting himself completely loo'd, to the great 



212 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

amusement of the company. The drift of the fair sisters' ad- 
vice was most probably to tempt him on, and then leave him 
in the lurch. 

With these comments we subjoin Goldsmith's reply to Mrs. 
Bunbury, a fine piece of off-hand, humorous writing, which has 
but in late years been given to the public, and which throws 
a familiar light on the social circle at Barton. 

" Madam, — I read your letter with all that allowance which 
critical candor could require, but after all find so much to object 
to, and so much to raise my indignation, that I cannot help giv- 
ing it a serious answer. — I am not so ignorant, madam, as not 
to see there are many sarcasms contained in it, and solecisms 
also. (Solecism is a word that comes from the town of Soleis 
in Attica, among the Greeks, built by Solon, and applied as we 
use the word Kidderminster for curtains from a town also of 
that name — but this is learning you have no taste for !) — 
I say, madam, there are many sarcasms in it, and solecisms 
also. But not to seem an ill-natured critic, I'll take leave to 
quote your own words, and give you my remarks upon them as 
they occur. You begin as follows : 

" ' I hope, my good Doctor, you soon will be here, 
And your spring-velvet coat very smart will appear, 
To open our ball the first day of the year.' 

" Pray, madam, where did you ever find the epithet ' good 
applied to the title of doctor ? Had you called me ' learned 
doctor,' or 'grave doctor,' or 'noble doctor,' it might be allow- 
able, because they belong to the profession. But, not to cavil 
at trifles, you talk of my ' spring-velvet coat,' and advise me to 
wear it the first day in the year, that is, in the middle of win- 
ter ! — a spring- velvet coat in the middle of winter ! ! ! That 
would be a solecism indeed ! and yet to increase the inconsist- 
ence, in another part of your letter you call me a beau. Now, 
on one side or other, you must be wrong. If I am a beau, I 
can never think of wearing a spring-velvet in winter : and if I 
am not a beau, why then, that explains itself. But let me go 
on to your two next strange lines : 

" ' And bring with you a wig, that is modish and gay, 
To dance with the girls that are makers of hay.' 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 213 

" The absurdity of making hay at Christmas you yourself 
seem sensible of: you say your sister will laugh ; and so indeed 
she well may ! The Latins have an expression for a contemp- 
tuous kind of laughter, ' naso contemnere adunco ' ; that is, to 
laugh with a crooked nose. She may laugh at you in the 
manner of the ancients if she thinks fit. But now I come to 
the most extraordinary of all extraordinary propositions, which 
is, to take your and your sister's advice in playing at loo. The 
presumption of the offer raises my indignation beyond the 
bounds of prose ; it inspires me at once with verse and re- 
sen tflcient. I take advice ! and from whom? You shall hear. 

" First let me suppose, what may shortly be true, 
The company set, and the word to be Loo ; 
All smirking, and pleasant, and big with adventure, 
And ogling the stake which is fix'd in the centre. 
Round and round go the cards, while I inwardly damn 
At never once finding a visit from Pam. 
I lay down ray stake, apparently cool, 
While the harpies about me all pocket the pool. 
I fret in my gizzard, yet cautious and sly, 
I wish all my friends may be bolder than I : 
Yet still they sit snug, not a creature will aim 
By losing their money to venture at fame. 
'Tis in vain that at niggardly caution I scold, 
'Tis in vain that I flatter the brave and the bold : 
All play their own way, and they think me an ass, . . . 
* What does Mrs. Bunbury ?'...' I, sir ? I pass.' 
' Pray what does Miss Horneck ? take courage, come do,' . . , 
' Who, I ? let me see, sir, why I must pass too.' 
Mr. Bunbury frets, and I fret like the devil, 
To see them so cowardly, lucky, and civil. 
Yet still I sit snug, and continue to sigh on, 
'Till, made by my losses as bold as a lion, 
I venture at all, while my avarice regards 
The whole pool as my own. . . . ' Come, give me five cards.' 
' Well done ! ' cry the ladies ; ' Ah, Doctor, that's good ! 
The pool's very rich, ... ah ! the Doctor is loo'd ! ' 
Thus foil'd in my courage, on all sides perplext, 
I ask for advice from the lady that's next : 
' Pray, ma'am, be so good as to give your advice ; 
Don't you think the best way is to venture for't twice ? ' 
' I advise,' cries the lady, ' to try it, I own. . . . 
Ah ! the Doctor is loo'd ! Come, Doctor, put down.' 
Thus, playing, and playing, I still grow more eager. 
And so bold, and so bold, I'm at last a bold beggar. 



214 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Now, ladies, I ask, if law-matters you're skill'd in, 

Whether crimes such as yours should not come before Fielding : 

Tor giving advice that is not worth a straw, 

May well be call'd picking of pockets in law ; 

And picking of pockets, with which I now charge ye, 

Is, by quinto Elizabeth, Death without Clergy. 

What justice, when both to the Old Bailey brought ! 

By the gods, I'll enjoy it, tho' 'tis but in thought ! 

Both are plac'd at the bar, with all proper decorum, 

With bunches of fennel, and nosegays before 'em ; 

Both cover their faces with mobs and all that, 

But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat. 

When uncover'd, a buzz of inquiry runs round, 

' Pray what are their crimes ? ' . . . 'They've been pilfering found.' 

' But, pray, who have they pilfer'd ?'...' A doctor, I hear.' 

' What, yon solemn-faced, odd-looking man that stands near I" 

' The same.' . . . ' What a pity ! how does it surprise one, 

Tico handsomer culprits I never set eyes on ! ' 

Then their friends all come round me with cringing and leering, 

To melt me to pity, and soften my swearing. 

First Sir Charles advances with phrases well-strung, 

* Consider, dear Doctor, the girls are but young.' 

' The younger the worse,' I return him again, 

' It shows that their habits are all dyed in grain.' 

' But then they're so handsome, one's bosom it grieves.' 

' What signifies handsome, when people are thieves ? ' 

' But where is your justice ? their cases are hard.' 

' What signifies jifsJice.? I want the reward.'' 

" ' There's the parish of Edmonton offers forty pounds ; 
there's the parish of St. Leonard Shoreditch offers forty pounds ; 
there's the parish of Tyburn, from the Hog-in-the-pound to St. 
Giles's watch-house, offers forty pounds, — I shall have all that 
if I convict them ! ' — 

" ' But consider their case, ... it may yet be your own ! 
And see how they kneel ! Is your heart made of stone ? 
This moves : ... so at last I agree to relent. 
For ten pounds in hand, and ten pounds to be spent.' 

" I challenge you all to answer this : I tell you, you cannot. 
It cuts deep. But now for the rest of the letter : and next — 
but I want room — so I believe I shall battle the rest out at 
Barton some day next week. — I don't value you all ! 

" 0. G." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 215 

We regret that we have no record of this Christmas visit to 
Barton ; that the poet had no Boswell to follow at his heels, 
and take note of all his sayings and doings. We can only pic- 
ture him in our minds, casting off all care ; enacting the lord of 
misrule ; presiding at the Christmas revels ; providing all kinds 
of merriment ; keeping the card-table in an uproar, and finally 
opening the ball on the first day of the year in his spring-velvet 
suit, with the Jessamy Bride for a partner. 

CHAPTER XXXVII 

Th€f5,trical delays — Negotiations with Colman — Letter to Garrick — 
Croaking of the manager — Naming of the play — She Stoops to 
Conquer — Foote's Primitive Puppetshow, Piety i7i Pattens — First 
performance of the comedy — Agitation of the author — Success — 
Colman squibbed out of town 

The gay life depicted in the two last chapters, while it kept 
Goldsmith in a state of continual excitement, aggravated the 
malady which was impairing his constitution ; yet his increasing 
perplexities in money matters drove him to the dissipation of 
society as a relief from solitary care. The delays of the theatre 
added to those perplexities. He had long since finished his new 
comedy, yet the year 1772 passed away without his being able 
to get it on the stage. No one, uninitiated in the interior of a 
theatre, that little world of traps and trickery, can have any 
idea of the obstacles and perplexities multiplied in the way of 
the most eminent and successful author by the mismanagement 
of managers, the jealousies and intrigues of rival authors, and 
the fantastic and impertinent caprices of actors. A long and 
baffling negotiation was carried on between Goldsmith and Col- 
man, the manager of Covent-Garden ; who retained the play in 
his hands until the middle of January, (1773,) without coming 
to a decision. The theatrical season was rapidly passing away, 
and Goldsmith's pecuniary difficulties were augmenting and 
pressing on him. We may judge of his anxiety by the following 
letter : 

" To George Colman, Esq. 
"Dear Sir, 

" I entreat you'll relieve me from that state of suspense in 
which I have been kept for a long time. Whatever objections 



216 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

you have made or shall make to my play, I will endeavor to 
remove and not argue about them. To bring in any new judges 
either of its merits or faults I can never submit to. Upon a 
former occasion, when my other play was before Mr. Garrick, 
he offered to bring me before Mr. Whitehead's tribunal, but I 
refused the proposal with indignation : I hope I shall not ex- 
perience as harsh treatment from you as from him. I have, as 
you know, a large sum of money to make up shortly ; by 
accepting my play, I can readily satisfy my creditor that way ; 
at any rate, I must look about to some certainty to be prepared. 
For God's sake take the play, and let us make the best of it, 
and let me have the same measure, at least, which you have 
given as bad plays as mine. 

" I am your friend and servant, 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 

Colman returned the manuscript with the blank sides of the 
leaves scored with disparaging comments and suggested altera- 
tions, but with the intimation that the faith of the theatre 
should be kept, and the play acted notwithstanding. Gold- 
smith submitted the criticisms to some of his friends, who pro- 
nounced them trivial, unfair, and contemptible, and intimated 
that Colman, being a dramatic WTiter himself, might be actu- 
ated by jealousy. The play was then sent, with Colman's 
comments written on it, to Garrick ; but he had scarce sent it 
when Johnson interfered, represented the evil that might result 
from an apparent rejection of it by Covent-Garden, and un- 
dertook to go forthwith to Colman, and have a talk with him 
on the subject. Goldsmith, therefore, penned the following note 
to Garrick : 

" Dear Sir, 

" I ask many pardons for the trouble I gave you yesterday. 
Upon more mature deliberation, and the advice of a sensible 
friend, I began to think it indelicate in me to throw upon you 
the odium of confirming Mr. Colman's sentence. I therefore 
request you will send my play back by my servant ; for having 
been assured of having it acted at the other house, though I 
confess yours in every respect more to my wish, yet it would be 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 217 

folly in me to forego an advantage which lies in my power of 
appealing from Mr. Oolman's opinion to the judgment of the 
town. I entreat, if not too late, you will keep this aftair a 
secret for some time. 

" I am, dear Sir, your very humble servant, 

"Oliver Goldsmith." 

The negotiation of Johnson with the manager of Covent- 
Garden was effective. "Colman," he says, "was prevailed on 
at last, by much solicitation, nay, a kind of force," to bring for- 
wnxd the comedy. Still the manager was ungenerous ; or, at 
least, indiscreet enough to express his opinion, that it would 
not reach a second representation. The plot, he said, was bad, 
and the interest not sustained; "it dwindled, and dwindled, 
and at last went out like the snuff of a candle." The effect of 
his croaking was soon apparent within the walls of the theatre. 
Two of the most popular actors, Woodward and Gentleman 
Smith, to whom the parts of Tony Lumpkin and Young Mar- 
" low were assigned, refused to act them ; one of them alleging, 
in excuse, the evil predictions of the manager. Goldsmith was 
advised to postpone the performance of his play until he could 
get these important parts well supplied. " No," said he, " I 
would sooner that my play were damned by bad players than 
merely saved by good acting." 

Quick was substituted for Woodward in Tony Lumpkin, and 
Lee Lewis, the harlequin of the theatre, for Gentleman Smith 
in Young Marlow ; and both did justice to their parts. 

Great interest was taken by Goldsmith's friends in the suc- 
cess of his piece. The rehearsals were attended by Johnson, 
Cradock, Murphy, Reynolds and his sister, and the whole 
Horneck connection, including, of course, the Jessamy Bride, 
whose presence may have contributed to flutter the anxious heart 
of the author. The rehearsals went off with great applause, but 
that Colman attributed to the partiality of friends. He con- 
tinued to croak, and refused to risk any expense in new scenery 
or dresses on a play which he was sure would prove a failure. 

The time was at hand for the first representation, and as yet 
the comedy was without a title. "We are all in labor for a 
name for Goldy's play," said Johnson, who, as usual, took a 



218 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

kind of fatherly protecting interest in poor Goldsmith's affairs. 
" The Old House a New Inn " was thought of for a time, but 
still did not please. Sir Joshua Keynolds proposed " The 
Belle's Stratagem," an elegant title, but not considered appli- 
cable, the perplexities of the comedy being produced by the 
mistake of the hero, not the stratagem of the heroine. The 
name was afterwards adopted by Mrs. Cowley for one of her 
comedies. " The Mistakes of a Night " was the title at length 
fixed upon, to which Goldsmith prefixed the words, "She 
Stoops to Conquer." 

The evil bodings of Colman still continued : they were even 
communicated in the box office to the servant of the Duke of 
Gloucester, Avho was sent to engage a box. Never did the play 
of a popular writer struggle into existence through more diffi- 
culties. 

In the mean time Foote's Primitive Puppetshow, entitled the 
" Handsome Housemaid, or Piety in Pattens," had been brought 
out at the Haymarket on the 15th of February. All the world, 
fashionable and unfashionable, had crowded to the theatre. The 
street was thronged with equipages — the doors were stormed 
by the mob. The burlesque was completely successful, and 
sentimental comedy received its quietus. Even Garrick, who 
had recently befriended it, now gave it a kick, as he saw it going 
down hill, and sent Goldsmith a humorous prologue to help his 
comedy of the opposite school. Garrick and Goldsmith, how- 
ever, were now on very cordial terms, to which the social meet- 
ings in the circle of the Hornecks and Bunburys may have 
contributed. 

On the 15th of March the new comedy was to be performed. 
Those who had stood up for its merits, and been irritated and 
disgusted by the treatment it had received from the manager, 
determined to muster their forces, and aid in giving it a good 
launch upon the town. The particulars of this confederation, 
and of its triumphant success, are amusingly told by Cumber- 
land in his memoirs. 

" We were not over sanguine of success, but peifectly deter- 
mined to struggle hard for our author. We accordingly as- 
sembled our strength at the Shakspeare Tavern, in a considerable 
body, for an early dinner, where Samuel Johnson took the chair 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 219 

at the head of a long table, and was the life and soul of the 
corps : the poet took post silently by his side, with the Burkes, 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Fitzherbert, Caleb Whitefoord, and a 
phalanx of North British, predetermined applauders, under the 
banner of Major Mills, ail good men and true. Our illustrious 
president was in inimitable glee ; and poor Goldsmith that day 
took all his raillery as patiently and complacently as my friend 
Boswell would have done any day or every day of his life. In 
the mean time, we did not forget our duty ; and though we had 
a better comedy going, in which Johnson was chief actor, we 
betfiok ourselves in good time to our separate and allotted posts, 
and waited the awful drawing up of the curtain. As our sta- 
tions were preconcerted, so were our signals for plaudits arranged 
and determined upon in a manner that gave every one his cue 
where to look for them, and how to follow them up. 

"We had among us a very worthy and efficient member, 
long since lost to his friends and the world at large, Adam 
Drummond, of amiable memory, who was gifted by nature with 
the most sonorous, and at the same time, the most contagious 
laugh that ever echoed from the human lungs. The neighing 
of the horse of the son of Hystaspes was a whisper to it ; the 
whole thunder of the theatre could not drown it. This kind 
and ingenious friend fairly forewarned us that he knew no more 
when to give his fire than the cannon did that was planted on 
a battery. He desired, therefore, to have a flapper at his elbow, 
and I had the honor to be deputed to that office. I planted 
him in an upper box, pretty nearly over the stage, in full view 
of the pit and galleries, and perfectly well situated to give the 
echo all its play through the hollows and recesses of the theatre. 
The success of our manoeuvre was complete. All eyes were upon 
Johnson, who sat in a front row of a side box ; and when he 
laughed, everybody thought themselves warranted to roar. In 
the mean time, my friend followed signals with a rattle so irre- 
sistibly comic that, when he had repeated it several times, the 
attention of the spectators was so engrossed by his person and 
performances, that the progress of the play seemed likely to 
become a secondary object, and I found it prudent to insinuate 
to him that he might halt his music without any prejudice to 
the author ; but alas ! it was now too late to rein him in ; he 



220 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

had laughed upon my signal where he found no joke, and now, 
unluckily, he fancied that he found a joke in almost every thing 
that was said ; so that nothing in nature could be more mal- 
apropos than some of his bursts every now and then were. 
These were dangerous moments, for the pit began to take 
umbrage ; but we carried our point through, and triumphed not 
only over Colman's judgment, but our own." 

Much of this statement has been condemned as exaggerated 
or discolored. Cumberland's memoirs have generally been char- 
acterized as partaking of romance, and in the present instance 
he had particular motives for tampering with the truth. He 
was a dramatic writer himself, jealous of the success of a rival, 
and anxious to have it attributed to the private management 
of friends. According to various accounts, public and private, 
such management was unnecessary, for the piece was " received 
throughout with the greatest acclamations." 

Goldsmith, in the present instance, had not dared, as on a 
former occasion, to be present at the first performance. He 
had been so overcome by his apprehensions that, at the prepar- 
atory dinner, he could hardly utter a word, and was so choked 
that he could not swallow a mouthful. When his friends 
trooped to the theatre, he stole away to St. James's Park : there 
he was found by a friend, between seven and eight o'clock, wan- 
dering up and down the Mall like a troubled spirit. With dif- 
ficulty he was persuaded to go to the theatre, where his presence 
might be important should any alteration be necessary. He 
arrived at the opening of the fifth act, and made his way be- 
hind the scenes. Just as he entered there was a slight hiss at 
the improbability of Tony Lumpkin's trick on his mother, in 
persuading her she was forty miles off, on CrackskuU Common, 
though she had been trundled about on her own grounds. 
" What's that ? what's that ! " cried Goldsmith to the manager, 
in great agitation. " Pshaw ! Doctor," replied Colman, sarcas- 
tically, " don't be frightened at a squib, when we've been sit- 
ting these two hours on a barrel of gunpowder ! " Though of 
a most forgiving nature. Goldsmith did not easily forget this 
ungracious and ill-timed sally. 

If Colman was indeed actuated by the paltry motives ascribed 
to him in his treatment of this play, he was most amply pun- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 221 

ished by its success, and by the taunts, epigrams, and censures 
levelled at him through the press, in which his false prophecies 
were jeered at ; his critical judgment called in question ; and he 
was openly taxed with literary jealousy. So galling and unre- 
mitting was the fire, that he at length wrote to Goldsmith, en- 
treating him " to take him off the rack of the newspapers " ; 
in the mean time, to escape the laugh that was raised about 
him in the theatrical world of London, he took refuge in Batli 
during the triumphant career of the comedy. 

The following is one of the many squibs which assailed the 
earsjof the manager : 

To George Colman, Esq., 

ON THE SUCCESS OF DK. GOLDSMITH'S NEW COMEDY 

" Come, Coley, doff those mourning weeds, 
Nor thus with jokes be flamm'd ; 
Tho' Goldsmith's present play succeeds, 
His next may still be damn'd. 

*' As this has 'scaped without a fall, 
To sink his next prepare ; 
New actors hire from Wapping Wall, 
And dresses from Bag Fair. 

" For scenes let tatter'd blankets fly, 
The prologue Kelly write ; 
Then swear again the piece must die 
Before the author's night. 

" Should these tricks fail, the lucky elf 
To bring to lasting shame, 
E'en write the best you can yourself. 
And print it in his name.'''' 

The solitary hiss, which had startled Goldsmith, was ascribed 
by some of the newspaper scribblers to Cumberland himself, 
who was " manifestly miserable at the delight of the audience, 
or to "Ossian" Macpherson, who was hostile to the whole 
Johnson clique, or to Goldsmith's dramatic rival, Kelly. The 
following is one of the epigrams which appeared j 



222 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

" At Dr. Goldsmith's merry play, 
All the spectators laugh, they say ; 
The assertion, sir, I must deny, 
For Cumberland and Kelly cry. 

Bide, si sapis.''^ 

Another, addressed to Goldsmith, alludes to Kelly's early 
apprenticeship to stay-making : 

"If Kelly finds fault with the shajoe of your muse, 
And thinks that too loosely it plays. 
He surely, dear Doctor, will never refuse 
To make it a new Fair of Stays .^ " 

Cradock had returned to the country before the production 
of the play ; the following letter, written just after the perfor- 
mance, gives an additional picture of the thorns which beset an 
author in the path of theatrical literature : 

"My Dear Sir, 

" The play has met with a success much beyond your expec- 
tations or mine. I thank you sincerely for your epilogue, which, 
however, could not be used, but with your permission shall be 
printed. The story in short is this. Murphy sent me rather 
the outline of an epilogue than an epilogue, which was to be 
sung by Mrs. Catley, and which she approved ; Mrs. Bulkley 
hearing this, insisted on throwing up her part " (Miss Hard- 
castle) " unless, according to the custom of the theatre, she were 
permitted to speak the epilogue. In this embarrassment I 
thought of making a quarrelling epilogue between Catley and 
her, debating who should speak the epilogue ; but then Mrs. 
Catley refused after I had taken the trouble of drawing it out. 
I was then at a loss indeed ; an epilogue was to be made, and 
for none but Mrs. Bulkley. I made one, and Colman thought 
it too bad to be spoken; I was obliged, therefore, to try a 
fourth time, and I made a very mawkish thing, as you'll shortly 
see. Such is the history of my stage adventures, and which I 
liave at last done with. I cannot help saying, that I am very 
sick of the stage ; and though I believe I shall get three toler- 
able benefits, yet I shall, on the whole, be a loser, even in a 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 223 

pecuniary light ; my ease and comfort I certainly lost while it 
was in agitation. 

" I am, my dear Cradock, your obliged and obedient servant, 

" Oliver Goldsmith. 

*' P. S. Present my most humble respects to Mrs. 
Cradock." 

Johnson, who had taken such a conspicuous part in promot- 
ing the interests of poor " Goldy," was triumphant at the suc- 
cess of the piece. " I know of no comedy for many years," 
said^he, " that has so much exhilarated an audience ; that has 
answered so much the great end of comedy — making an audi- 
ence merry." 

Goldsmith was happy, also, in gleaning applause from less 
authoritative sources. Northcote, the painter, then a youth- 
ful pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds; and Ralph, Sir Joshua's 
confidential man, had taken their stations in the gallery to 
lead the applause in that quarter. Goldsmith asked North- 
cote's opinion of the play. The youth modestly declared he 
could not presume to judge in such matters. " Did it make you 
laugh ? " " Oh, exceedingly ! " " That is all I require," replied 
Goldsmith ; and rewarded him for his criticism by box-tickets 
for his first benefit night. 

The comedy was immediately put to press, and dedicated to 
Johnson in the following grateful and aftectionate terms : 

" In inscribing this slight performance to you, I do not 
mean so much to compliment you as myself. It may do me 
some honor to inform the public, that I have lived many years 
in intimacy with you. It may serve the interests of mankind 
also to inform them, that the greatest wit may be found in a 
character, without impairing the most unaffected piety." 

The copyright was transferred to Mr. Newbery, according to 
agreement, whose profits on the sale of the work far exceeded 
the debts for which the author in his perplexities had pre- 
engaged it. The sum which accrued to Goldsmith from his 
benefit nights, afforded but a slight palliation of his pecuniary 
difficulties. His friends, while they exulted in his success, 
little knew of his continually increasing embarrassments, and 
of the anxiety of mind which kept tasking his pen while it 



224 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

impaired the ease and freedom of spirit necessary to felicitous 
composition. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII 

A newspaper attack — The Evans affray — Johnson's comment 

The triumphant success of "She Stoops to Conquer " 
brought forth, of course, those carpings and cavillings of under- 
ling scribblers, which are the thorns and briers in the path of 
successful authors. Goldsmith, though easily nettled by 
attacks of the kind, was at present too well satisfied with the 
reception of his comedy to heed them ; but the following 
anonymous letter, which appeared in a public paper, was not to 
be taken with equal equanimity : 

" For the London Packet. 

" TO DR. GOLDSMITH. 

''''Vous vous noyez par vanite. 

" Sir, — The happy knack which you have learned of 
puffing your own compositions, provokes me to come forth. 
You have not been the editor of newspapers and magazines not 
to discover the trick of literary humbug; but the gauze is so 
thin that the very foolish part of the world see through it, and 
discover the doctor's monkey face and cloven foot. Your poetic 
vanity is as unpardonable as your personal. Would man be- 
lieve it, and will woman bear it, to be told that for hours 
the great Goldsmith will stand surveying his grotesque orang- 
outang's figure in a pier glass 1 Was but the lovely H — k as 
much enamored, you would not sigh, my gentle swain, in vain. 
But your vanity is preposterous. How will this same bard of 
Bedlam ring the changes in the praise of Goldy ! But what 
has he to be either proud or vain of? 'The Traveller' is a 
flimsy poem, built upon false principles — principles diamet- 
rically opposite to liberty. What is ' The Good-natured Man ' 
but a poor, water-gruel dramatic dose ? What is ' The De- 
serted Village ' but a pretty poem of easy numbers, without 
fancy, dignity, genius, or fire 1 And, pray, what may be the 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 225 

last speaking pantomime, so praised by the doctor himself, 
but an incoherent piece of stuff', the figure of a woman with a 
fish's tail, without plot, incident, or intrigue? We are made 
to laugh at stale, dull jokes, wherein we mistake pleasantry for 
wit, and grimace for humor ; wherein every scene is unnatural 
and inconsistent with the rules, the laws of nature and of the 
drama ; viz., two gentlemen come to a man of fortune's house, 
eat, drink, &c., and take it for an inn. The one is intended as 
a lover for the daughter ; he talks with her for some hours ; 
and, when he sees her again in a different dress, he treats her 
as a-bar-girl, and swears she squinted. He abuses the master 
of the house, and threatens to kick him out of his own doors. 
The squire, whom we are told is to be a fool, proves to be the 
most sensible being of the piece ; and he makes out a whole 
act by bidding his mother lie close behind a bush, persuading 
her that his father, her own husband, is a highwayman, and 
that he has come to cut their throats ; and, to give his cousin 
an opportunity to go off", he drives his mother over hedges, 
ditches, and through ponds. There is not, sweet, sucking 
Johnson, a natural stroke in the whole play but the young 
fellow's giving the stolen jewels to the mother, supposing her 
to be the landlady. That Mr. Oolman did no justice to this 
piece, I honestly allow ; that he told all his friends it would be 
damned, I positively aver ; and, from such ungenerous insinua- 
tions, without a dramatic merit, it rose to public notice, and it 
is now the ton to go and see it, though I never saw a person 
that either liked it or approved it, any more than the absurd 
plot of Home's tragedy of 'Alonzo.' Mr. Goldsmith, correct 
your arrogance, reduce your vanity, and endeavor to believe, as 
a man, you are of the plainest sort ; and as an author, but a 
mortal piece of mediocrity. 

" Brise le miroir infid^le 
Qui vous cache la verite. 

"Tom Tickle." 

It would be difficult' to devise a letter more calculated to 
wound the peculiar sensibilities of Goldsmith. The attacks 
upon him as an author, though annoying enough, he could 



226 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

have tolerated ; but then the allusion to his " grotesque " 
person, to his studious attempts to adorn it ; and above all, to 
his being an unsuccessful admirer of the lovely H — k (the 
Jessamy Bride), struck rudely upon the most sensitive part of 
his highly sensitive nature. The paragraph, it is said, was 
first pointed out to him by an officious friend, an Irishman, 
who told him he was bound in honor to resent it ; but he 
needed no such prompting. He was in a high state of excite- 
ment and indignation, and accompanied by his friend, who is 
said to have been a Captain Higgins, of the marines, he repaired 
to Paternoster-row, to the shop of Evans, the publisher, whom 
he supposed to be the editor of the paper. Evans was sum- 
moned by his shopman from an adjoining room. Goldsmith 
announced his name. "I have called," added he, "in conse- 
quence of a scurrilous attack made upon me, and an unwarrant- 
able liberty taken with the name of a young lady. As for 
myself, I care little ; but her name must not be sported with." 

Evans professed utter ignorance of the matter, and said he 
would speak to the editor. He stooped to examine a file of the 
paper, in search of the offensive article ; whereupon Goldsmith's 
friend gave him a signal, that now was a favorable moment 
for the exercise of his cane. The hint was taken as quick 
as given, and the cane was vigorously applied to the back of 
the stooping publisher. The latter rallied in an instant, and, 
being a stout, high-blooded Welshman, returned the blows with 
interest. A lamp hanging overhead was broken, and sent down 
a shower of oil upon the combatants ; but the battle raged with 
unceasing fury. The shopman ran off for a constable ; but Dr. 
Kenrick, who happened to be in the adjacent room, sallied forth, 
interfered between the combatants, and put an end to the affray. 
He conducted Goldsmith to a coach, in exceedingly battered 
and tattered plight, and accpmpanied him home, soothing him 
with much mock commiseration, though he was generally 
suspected, and on good grounds, to be the author of the libel. 

Evans immediately instituted a suit against Goldsmith for 
an assault, but was ultimately prevailed upon to compromise 
the matter, the poet contributing fifty pounds to the Welsh 
charity. 

Newspapers made themselves, as may well be supposed, ex- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 227 

ceedingly merry with the combat. Some censured him severely 
for invading the sanctity of a man's own house ; others accused 
him of having, in his former capacity of editor of a magazine, 
been guilty of the very offences that he now resented in others. 
This drew from him the following vindication : 

"To the Public. 

"Lest it should be supposed that I have been willing to 
correct in others an abuse of which I have been guilty myself, 
I beg leave to declare, that, in all my life, I never wrote or 
dict^-ted a single paragraph, letter, or essay in a newspaper, 
except a few moral essays under the character of a Chinese, 
about ten years ago, in the Ledger, and a letter, to which I 
signed my name, in the aS'^. Jameis's Chronicle. If the liberty 
of the press, therefore, has been abused, I have had no hand 
in it. 

"I have always considered the press as the protector of our 
freedom, as a watchful guardian, capable of uniting the weak 
against the encroachments of power. What concerns the pub- 
lic most properly admits of a public discussion. But, of late, 
the press has turned from defending public interest to making 
inroads upon private life ; from combating the strong to over- 
whelming the feeble. No condition is now too obscure for its 
abuse, and the protector has become the tyrant of the people. 
In this manner the freedom of the press is beginning to sow the 
seeds of its own dissolution ; the great must oppose it from 
principle, and the weak from fear ; till at last every rank of 
mankind shall be found to give up its benefits, content with 
security from insults. 

" How to put a stop to this licentiousness, by which all are 
indiscriminately abused, and by which vice consequently escapes 
in the general censure, I am unable to tell ; all I could wish is, 
that, as the law gives us no protection against the injury, so it 
should give calumniators no shelter after having provoked cor- 
rection. The insults which we receive before the public, by 
being more open, are the more distressing ; by treating them 
with silent contempt we do not pay a sufficient deference to the 
opinion of the world. By recurring to legal redress we too 
often expose the weakness of the law, which only serves to in- 



228 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

crease our mortification by failing to relieve us. In short, every 
man should singly consider himself as the guardian of the liberty 
of the press, and, as far as his influence can extend, should 
endeavor to prevent its licentiousness becoming at last the 
grave of its freedom. 

"Oliver Goldsmith." 

Boswell, who had just arrived in town, met with this article 
in a newspaper which he found at Dr. Johnson's. The doctor 
was from home at the time, and Bozzy and Mrs. Williams, in a 
critical conference over the letter, determined from the style 
that it must have been written by the lexicographer himself. 
The latter on his return soon undeceived them. " Sir," said he 
to Boswell, " Goldsmith would no more have asked me to have 
wrote such a thing as that for him, than he would have asked 
me to feed him with a spoon, or do any thing else that denoted 
his imbecility. Sir, had he shown it to any one friend, he would 
not have been allowed to publish it. He has, indeed, done it 
very well ; but it is a foolish thing well done. I suppose he has 
been so much elated with the success of his new comedy, that 
he has thought every thing that concerned him must be of 
importance to the public." 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

Boswell in Holy-Week — Dinner at Oglethorpe's — Dinner at Paoli's — 
The policy of truth — Goldsmith affects independence of royalty — 
Paoli's compliment — Johnson's eulogium on the fiddle — Question 
about suicide — Boswell' s subserviency 

The return of Boswell to town to his task of noting down 
the conversations of Johnson, enables us to glean from his jour- 
nal some scanty notices of Goldsmith. It was now Holy-Week, 
a time, during which Johnson was particularly solemn in his 
manner and strict in his devotions. Boswell, who was the imi- 
tator of the great moralist in every thing, assumed, of course, an 
extra devoutness on the present occasion, " He had an odd mock 
solemnity of tone and manner," said Miss Burney, (afterwards 
Madame D'Arblay,) "which he had acquired from constantly 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 229 

thinking, and imitating Dr. Johnson." It would seem that he 
undertook to deal out some second-hand homilies, a la Johnson, 
for the edification of Goldsmith during Holy- Week. The poet, 
whatever might be his religious feeling, had no disposition to be 
schooled by so shallow an apostle. " Sir," said he in reply, 
" as I take my shoes from the shoemaker, and my coat from 
the tailor, so I take my religion from the priest." 

Boswell treasured up the reply in his memory or his memo- 
randum book. A few days afterwards, the 9th of April, he 
kept Good Friday with Dr. Johnson, in orthodox style ; break- 
fasted with him on tea and crossbuns ; went to church with 
liifEi morning and evening ; fasted in the interval, and read with 
him in the Greek Testament : then, in the piety of his heart, 
complained of the sore rebuff he had met with in the course of 
his religious exhortations to the poet, and lamented that the 
latter should indulge in " this loose way of talking." " Sir," 
replied Johnson, "Goldsmith knows nothing — he has made 
up his mind about nothing." 

This reply seems to have gratified the lurking jealousy of 
Boswell, and he has recorded it in his journal. Johnson, how- 
ever, with respect to Goldsmith, and indeed with respect to 
every body else, blew hot as well as cold, according to the hu- 
mor he was in. Boswell, who was astonished and piqued at the 
continually increasing celebrity of the poet, observed some time 
after to Johnson, in a tone of surprise, that Goldsmith had 
acquired more fame than all the officers of the last war who 
were not generals. "Why, sir," answered Johnson, his old 
feeling of good-will working uppermost, "you will find ten 
thousand fit to do what they did, before you find one to do 
what Goldsmith has done. You must consider that a thing is 
valued according to its rarity. A pebble that paves the street 
is in itself more useful than the diamond upon a lady's finger." 

On the 13th of April we find Goldsmith and Johnson at the 
table of old General Oglethorpe, discussing the question of the 
degeneracy of the human race. Goldsmith asserts the fact, and 
attributes it to the influence of luxury. Johnson denies the 
fact ; and observes, that even admitting it, luxury could not be 
the cause. It reached but a small proportion of the human 
race. Soldiers, on sixpence a day, could not indulge in lux- 



230 OLIVEK GOLDSMITH 

uries ; the poor and laboring classes, forming the great mass 
of mankind, were out of its sphere. Wherever it could reach 
them, it strengthened them and rendered them prolific. The 
conversation was not of particular force or point as reported by 
Boswell ; the dinner party was a very small one, in which there 
was no provocation to intellectual display. 

After dinner they took tea with the ladies, where we find 
poor Goldsmith happy and at home, singing Tony Lumpkin's 
song of the "Three Jolly Pigeons," and another, called the 
" Humors of Ballamaguery," to a very pretty Irish tune. It 
was to have been introduced in " She Stoops to Conquer," but 
was left out, as the actress who played the heroine could not 
sing. 

It was in these genial moments that the sunshine of Gold- 
smith's nature would break out, and he would say and do a 
thousand whimsical and agreeable things that made him the 
life of the strictly social circle. Johnson, with whom conver- 
sation was every thing, used to judge Goldsmith too much by 
his own colloquial standard, and undervalue him for being less 
provided than himself with acquired facts, the ammunition of 
the tongue and often the mere lumber of the memory ; others, 
however, valued him for the native felicity of his thoughts, 
however carelessly expressed, and for certain good-fellow quali- 
ties, less calculated to dazzle than to endear. "It is amaz- 
ing," said Johnson one day, after he himself had been talking 
like an oracle ; " it is amazing how little Goldsmith knows; he 
seldom comes where he is not more ignorant than any one 
else." "Yet," replied Sir Joshua Reynolds, with affectionate 
promptness, "there is no man whose company is more 
liked,:' 

Two or three days after the dinner at General Oglethorpe's, 
Goldsmith met Johnson again at the table of General Paoli, the 
hero of Corsica. Martinelli, of Florence, author of an Italian 
history of England, was among the guests ; as was Boswell, to 
whom we are indebted for minutes of the conversation which 
took place. The question was debated whether Martinelli 
should continue his history down to that day. "To be sure 
he should," said Goldsmith. "No, sir," cried Johnson; "it 
would give great oftence. He would have to tell of almost all 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 231 

the living great what they did not wish told." Goldsmith. — 
" It may, perhaps, be necessary for a native to be more cau- 
tious ; but a foreigner, who comes among us without prejudice, 
may be considered as holding the place of a judge, and may 
speak his mind freely." Johnson. — " Sir, a foreigner, when 
he sends a work from the press, ought to be on his guard 
against catching the error and mistaken enthusiasm of the 
people among whom he happens to be." Goldsmith. — " Sir, 
he wants only to sell his liistory, and to tell truth ; one an 
honest, the other a laudable motive." Johnson. — " Sir, they 
are both laudable motives. It is laudable in a man to wish to 
liv^ by his labors ; but he should write so as he may live by 
them, not so as he may be knocked on the head. I would 
advise him to be at Calais before he publishes his history of 
the present age. A foreigner who attaches himself to a politi- 
cal party in this country, is in the worst state that can be 
imagined ; he is looked upon as a mere intermeddler. A native 
may do it from interest." Boswell. — "Or principle." Gold- 
smith. — " There are people who tell a hundred political lies 
every day, and are not hurt by it. Surely, then, one may 
tell truth with perfect safety." Johnson. — " Why, sir, in 
the first place, he who tells a hundred lies has disarmed the 
force of his lies. But, besides, a man had rather have a hun- 
dred lies told of him, than one truth which he does not wish to 
be told." Goldsmith. — " For my part, I'd tell the truth, and 
shame the devil." Johnson. — "Yes, sir, but the devil will be 
angry. I wish to shame the devil as much as you do, but I 
should choose to be out of the reach of his claws." Goldsmith. 
— " His claws can do you no hurt where you have the shield 
of truth " 

This last reply was one of Goldsmith's lucky hits, and closed 
the argument in his favor. 

" We talked," writes Boswell, " of the king's coming to see 
Goldsmith's new play." " I wish he would," said Goldsmith, 
adding, however, with an affected indifference, " not that it 
would do me the least good." "Well, then," cried Johnson, 
laughing, " let us say it would do him good. No, sir, this 
affectation will not pass ; — it is mighty idle. In such a state 
as ours, who would not wish to please the chief magistrate ? " 



232 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

" I do wish to please him," rejoined Goldsmith. " I remem- 
ber a line in Dry den : 

" ' And every poet is the monarch's friend.' 

It ought to be reversed." " Nay," said Johnson, " there are 
finer lines in Dryden on this subject : 

" ' For colleges on bounteous kings depend, 
And never rebel was to arts a friend.' " 

General Paoli observed that " successful rebels might be." 
" Happy rebellions," interjected Martinelli. " We have no 
such phrase," cried Goldsmith. " But have you not the 
thing?" asked Paoli. "Yes," replied Goldsmith, "all our 
happy revolutions. They have hurt our constitution, and ivill 
hurt it, till we mend it by another happy revolution." This 
was a sturdy sally of Jacobitism, that quite surprised Boswell, 
but must have been relished by Johnson. 

General Paoli mentioned a passage in the play, which had 
been construed into a compliment to a lady of distinction, whose 
marriage with the Duke of Cumberland had excited the strong 
disapprobation of the king as a mesalliance. Boswell, to draw 
Goldsmith out, pretended to think the compliment unintentional. 
The poet smiled and hesitated. The general came to his relief. 
"Monsieur Goldsmith," said he, "est comme la mer, qui jette 
des perles et beau coup d'autres belles choses, sans s'en apper- 
cevoir." (Mr. Goldsmith is like the sea, which casts forth 
pearls and many other beautiful things without perceiving it.) 

" Tr^s-bien dit, et tr^s-dl^gamment " (very well said, and 
very elegantly), exclaimed Goldsmith ; delighted with so beau- 
tiful a compliment from such a quarter. 

Johnson spoke disparagingly of the learning of a Mr. Harris, 
of Salisbury, and doubted his being a good Grecian. " He is 
what is much better," cried GoldsmitJ;i, with prompt good 
nature, "he is a worthy, humane man." "Nay, sir," rejoined 
the logical Johnson, " that is not to the purpose of our argu- 
ment ; that will prove that he can play upon the fiddle as well 
as Giardini, as [well as it will prove] that he is an eminent Gre- 
cian." Goldsmith found he had got into a scrape, and seized 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 233 

upon Giardini to help him out of it. " The greatest musical 
performers," said he, dexterously turning the conversation, 
" have but small emoluments ; Giardini, I am told, does not 
get above seven hundred a year." " That is indeed but little 
for a man to get," observed Johnson, " who does best that which 
so many endeavor to do. There is nothing, I think, in which 
the power of art is shown so much as in playing on the fiddle. 
In all other things we can do something at first. Any man 
will forge a bar of iron, if you give him a hammer ; not so well 
as a smith, but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of wood, 
and, make a box, though a clumsy one ; but give him a fiddle 
and a fiddlestick, and he can do nothing." 

This, upon the whole, though reported by the one-sided Bos- 
well, is a tolerable specimen of the conversations of Goldsmith 
and Johnson ; the former heedless, often illogical, always on the 
kind-hearted side of the question, and prone to redeem himself 
by lucky hits ; the latter closely argumentative, studiously sen- 
tentious, often profound, and sometimes laboriously prosaic. 

They had an argument a few days later at Mr. Thrale's table, 
on the subject of suicide. " Do you think, sir," said Boswell, 
" that all who commit suicide are mad ? " " Sir," replied John- 
son, " they are not often universally disordered in their intellects, 
but one passion presses so upon them that they yield to it, and 
commit suicide, as a passionate man will stab another. I have 
often thought," added he, " that after a man has taken the reso- 
lution to kill himself, it is not courage in him to do any thing, 
however desperate, because he has nothing to fear." "I don't 
see that," observed Goldsmith. " Nay, but my dear sir," re- 
joined Johnson, "why should you not see what every one else 
does ? " "It is," replied Goldsmith, " for fear of something that 
he has resolved to kill himself; and will not that timid dispo- 
sition restrain him?" "It does not signify," pursued Johnson, 
*' that the fear of something made him resolve ; it is upon the 
state of his mind, after the resolution is taken, that I argue. 
Suppose a man, either from fear, or pride, or conscience, or 
whatever motive, has resolved to kill himself ; when once the 
resolution is taken he has nothing to fear. He may then go 
and take the King of Prussia by the nose at the head of his 
army. He cannot fear the rack who is determined to kill him- 



234 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

self." Boswell reports no more of the discussion, though Gold- 
smith might have continued it with advantage : for the very- 
timid disposition, which through fear of something was impel- 
ling the man to commit suicide, might restrain him from an act, 
involving the punishment of the rack, more terrible to him than 
death itself. 

It is to be regretted in all these reports by Boswell, we have 
scarcely any thing but the remarks of Johnson ; it is only by 
accident that he now and then gives us the observations of 
others, when they are necessary to explain or set off those of 
his hero. " When in that ^reseTzce," says Miss Burney, " he 
was unobservant, if not contemptuous of every one else. In 
truth, when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly forbore 
even answering any thing that was said, or attending to any 
thing that went forward, lest he should miss the smallest sound 
from that voice, to which he paid such exclusive, though 
merited, homage. But the moment that voice burst forth, the 
attention which it excited on Mr. Boswell, amounted almost to 
pain. His eyes goggled with eagerness ; he leant his ear almost 
on the shoulder of the doctor ; and his mouth dropped open to 
catch every syllable that might be uttered ; nay, he seemed not 
only to dread losing a word, but to be anxious not to miss a 
breathing ; as if hoping from it latently, or mystically, some 
information." 

On one occasion the doctor detected Boswell, or Bozzy, as he 
called him, eavesdropping behind his chair, as he was convers- 
ing with Miss Burney at Mr. Thrale's table. " What are you 
doing there, sir ? " cried he, turning round angrily, and clapping 
his hand upon his knee. "Go to the table, sir." 

Boswell obeyed with an air of affright and submission, which 
raised a smile on every face. Scarce had he taken his seat, 
however, at a distance, than impatient to get again at the side 
of Johnson, he rose and was running off in quest of something 
to show him, when the doctor roared after him authoritatively, 
" What are you thinking of, sir ? Why do you get up before 
the cloth is removed 1 Come back to your place, sir ; " — and 
the obsequious spaniel did as he was commanded. — " Running 
about in the middle of meals ! " muttered the doctor, pursing 
his mouth at the same time to restrain his rising risibility. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 235 

Boswell got another rebuff from Johnson, which would have 
demolished any other man. He had been teasing him with 
many direct questions, such as What did you do, sir ? — What 
did you say, sir ? until the great philologist became perfectly 
enraged. " I will not be put to the question I " roared he. 
" Don't you consider, sir, that these are not the manners of a 
gentleman 1 I will not be baited with rvhat and why ; What 
is this 1 What is that ? Why is a cow's tail long 1 W^hy is a 
fox's tail bushy ? " " Why, sir," replied pil-garlick, " you are so 
good that I venture to trouble you." " Sir," replied Johnson, 
" my being so good is no reason why you should be so ^7^." 
"You have but two topics, sir," exclaimed he on another occa- 
sion, " yourself and me, and I am sick of both." 

Boswell's inveterate disposition to toad was a sore cause of 
mortification to his father, the old laird of Auchinleck (or Affleck). 
He had been annoyed by his extravagant devotion to Paoli, but 
then he was something of a military hero ; but this tagging at 
the heels of Dr. Johnson, whom he considered a kind of peda- 
gogue, set his Scotch blood in a ferment. " There's nae hope 
for Jamie, mon," said he to a friend ; " Jamie is gaen clean 
gyte. What do you think, mon *? He's done wi' Paoli ; he's 
off wi' the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican ; and whose tail 
do you think he has pinn'd himself to now, mon 1 A doininie, 
mon ; an auld dominie : he keeped a schiile, and cau'd it an 
acaadamy." 

We shall show in the next chapter that Jamie's devotion to 
the dominie did not go unrewarded. 

CHAPTER XL 

Changes in the Literary Club — Johnson's objection to Garrick — 
Election of Boswell 

The Literary Club (as we have termed the club in Gerard- 
street, though it took that name some time later) had now been 
in existence several years. Johnson was exceedingly chary at 
first of its exclusiveness, and opposed to its being augmented 
in number. Not long after its institution, Sir Joshua Reynolds 
was speaking of it to Garrick. " I like it much," said little 



236 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

David, briskly; "I think I shall be of you." "When Sir 
Joshua mentioned this to Dr. Johnson," says Boswell, " he was 
much displeased with the actor's conceit. ' He'll he of us ? ' 
growled he. ' How does he know we will permit him 1 The 
first duke in England has uo right to hold such language.'" 

When Sir John Hawkins spoke favorably of Garrick's pre- 
tensions, "Sir," replied Johnson, "he will disturb us by his 
buffoonery." In the same spirit he declai-ed to Mr. Thrale, 
that if Gar rick should apply for admission, he would black-ball 
him. "Who, sir?" exclaimed Thrale, with surprise; "Mr. 
Garrick — your friend, your companion — black-ball him ! " 
" Why, sir," replied Johnson, " I love my little David dearly 
— better than all or any of his flatterers do ; but surely one 
ought to sit in a society like ours, 

" ' Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player.' " 

The exclusion from the club was a sore mortification to Gar- 
rick, though he bore it without complaining. He could not 
help continually to ask questions about it — what was going 
on there — whether he was ever the subject of conversation. 
By degrees the rigor of the club relaxed : some of the members 
grew negligent. Beauclerc lost his right of membership by 
neglecting to attend. On his marriage, however, with Lady 
Diana Spencer, daughter of the Duke of .Marlborough, and re- 
cently divorced from Viscount Bolingbroke, he had claimed and 
regained his seat in the club. The number of members had 
likewise been augmented. The proposition to increase it origi- 
nated with Goldsmith. "It would give," he thought, "an 
agreeable variety to their meetings ; for there can be nothing 
new amongst us," said he ; "we have travelled over each other's 
minds." Johnson was piqued at the suggestion. " Sir," said 
he, "you have not travelled over my mind, I promise you." 
Sir Joshua, less confident in the exhaustless fecundity of his 
mind, felt and acknowledged the force of Goldsmith's suggestion. 
Several new members, therefore, had been added ; the first, to 
his great joy, was David Garrick. Goldsmith, who was now 
on cordial terras with him, had zealously promoted his election, 
and Johnson had given it his warm approbation. Another new 
member was Beauclerc's friend. Lord Charleraont ; and a still 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 237 

more important one was Mr., afterwards Sir William, Jones, 
the famous Orientalist, at that time a young lawyer of the Tem- 
ple and a distinguished scholar. 

To the great astonishment of the club, Johnson now proposed 
his devoted follower, Boswell, as a member. He did it in a 
note addressed to Goldsmith, who presided on the evening of 
the 23d of April. The nomination was seconded by Beauclerc. 
According to the rules of the club, the ballot would take place 
at the next meeting (on the 30th) ; there was an intervening 
week, therefore, in which to discuss the pretensions of the can- 
didate. We may easily imagine the discussions that took place. 
Boswell had made himself absurd in such a variety of ways, 
that the very idea of his admission was exceedingly irksome to 
some of the members. " The honor of being elected into the 
Turk's Head Club," said the Bishop of St. Asaph, " is not in- 
ferior to that of being representative of Westminster and Sur- 
rey : " what had Boswell done to merit such an honor 1 What 
chance had he of gaining it ? The answer was simple : he had 
been the persevering worshipper, if not sycophant, of Johnson. 
The great lexicographer had a heart to be won by apparent 
affection ; he stood forth authoritatively in support of his vassal. 
If asked to state the merits of the candidate, he summed them 
up in an indefinite but comprehensive word of his own coining : 
he was cluhahle. He moreover gave significant hints that if 
Boswell were kept out he should oppose the admission of any 
other candidate. No further opposition was made ; in fact 
none of the members had been so fastidious and exclusive in 
regard to the club as Johnson himself; and if he were pleased, 
they were easily satisfied : besides, they knew that with all his 
faults, Boswell was a cheerful companion, and possessed lively 
social qualities. 

On Friday, when the ballot was to take place, Beauclerc gave 
a dinner, at his house in the Adelphi, where Boswell met several 
of the members who were favorable to his election. After 
dinner the latter adjourned to the club, leaving Boswell in com- 
pany with Lady Di Beauclerc until the fate of his election 
should be known. He. sat, he says, in a state of anxiety which 
even the charming conversation of Lady Di could not entirely 
dissipate. It was not long before tidings were brought of his 



238 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

election, and he was conducted to the place of meeting, where, 
beside the company he had met at dinner, Burke, Dr. Nugent,- 
Garrick, Goldsmith, and Mr. William Jones were waiting to 
receive him. The club, notwithstanding all its learned dignity 
in the eyes of the world, could at times " unbend and play the 
fool " as well as less important bodies. Some of its jocose con- 
versations have at times leaked out, and a society in which 
Goldsmith could venture to sing his song of " an old woman 
tossed in a blanket," could not be so very staid in its gravity. 
We may suppose, therefore, the jokes that had been passing 
among the members while awaiting the arrival of Boswell. 
Beauclerc himself could not have repressed his disposition for 
a sarcastic pleasantry. At least we have a right to presume 
all this from the conduct of Dr. Johnson himself. 

With all his gravity he possessed a deep fund of quiet humor, 
and felt a kind of whimsical responsibility to protect the club 
from the absurd propensities of the very questionable associate 
he had thus inflicted on them. Kising, therefore, as Boswell 
entered, he advanced with a very doctorial air, placed himself 
behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a desk or pulpit, and 
then delivered, ex cathedra^ a mock solemn charge, pointing out 
the conduct expected from him as a good member of the club ; 
what he was to do, and especially what he was to avoid ; in- 
cluding in the latter, no doubt, all those petty, prying, question- 
ing, gossiping, babbling habits which had so often grieved the 
spirit of the lexicographer. It is to be regretted that Boswell 
has never thought proper to note down the particulars of this 
charge, which, from the well known characters and positions of 
the parties, might have furnished a parallel to the noted charge 
of Launcelot Gobbo to his dog. 



CHAPTER XLI 

Dinner at Dilly's — Conversations on natural history — Intermeddling 
of Boswell — Dispute about toleration — Johnson's rebuff to Gold- 
smith; his apology — Man-worship — Doctors Major and Minor — A 
farewell visit 

A FEW days after the serio-comic scene of the elevation of 
Boswell into the Literary Club, we find that indefatigable 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 239 

biographer giving particulars of a dinner at the Dillys, book- 
sellers, in the Poultry, at which he met Goldsmith and John- 
son, with several other literary characters. His anecdotes of 
the conversation, of course, go to glorify Dr. Johnson ; for, as 
he observes in his biography, " his conversation alone, or what 
led to it, or. was interwoven with it, is the business of this 
work." Still, on the present as on other occasions, he gives 
unintentional and perhaps unavoidable gleams of Goldsmith's 
good sense, which show that the latter only wanted a less preju- 
diced and more impartial reporter, to put down the charge of col- 
loquial incapacity so unjustly fixed upon him. The conversation 
turned upon the natural history of birds, a beautiful subject, on 
which the poet, from his recent studies, his habits of observa- 
tion, and his natural tastes, must have talked with instruction 
and feeling ; yet, though we have much of what Johnson said, 
we have only a casual remark or two of Goldsmith. One was 
on the migration of swallows, which he pronounced partial; 
" the stronger ones," said he, " migrate, the others do not." 

Johnson denied to the brute creation the faculty of reason. 
"Birds," said he, "build by instinct; they never improve; 
they build their first nest as well as any one they ever build." 
"Yet we see," observed Goldsmith, "if you take away a bird's 
nest with the eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest and lay 
again." " Sir," replied Johnson, " that is because at first she 
has full time, and makes her nest deliberately. In the case 
you mention, she is pressed to lay, and must, therefore, make 
her nest quickly, and consequently it will be slight." " The 
nidification of birds," rejoined Goldsmith, "is what is least 
known in natural history, though one of the most curious things 
in it." While conversation was going on in this placid, agree- 
able and instructive manner, the eternal meddler and busy- 
body, Boswell, must intrude, to put it in a brawl. The Dillys 
were dissenters ; two of their guests were dissenting clergy- 
men ; another, Mr. Toplady, was a clergyman of the established 
church. Johnson, himself, was a zealous, uncompromising 
churchman. None but a marplot like Boswell would have 
thought, on such an occasion, and in such company, to broach 
the subject of religious toleration ; but, as has been well ob- 
served, "it was his perverse inclination to introduce subjects 



240 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

that he hoped would produce difference and debate." In the 
present instance he gained his point. An animated dispute 
immediately arose, in which, according to Boswell's report, 
Johnson monopolized the greater part of the conversation ; not 
always treating the dissenting clergymen with the greatest 
courtesy, and even once wounding the feelings of the mild and 
amiable Bennet Langton by his harshness. 

Goldsmith mingled a little in the dispute and with some 
advantage, but was cut short by flat contradictions when most 
in the right. He sat for a time silent but impatient under such 
overbearing dogmatism, though Boswell, with his usual misin- 
terpretation, attributes his "restless agitation " to a wish to get 
in and shine. " Finding himself excluded," continues Boswell, 
"he had taken his hat to go away, but remained for a time 
with it in his hand, like a gamester, who, at the end of a long 
night, lingers for a little while to see if he can have a favorable 
opportunity to finish with success." Once he was beginning 
to speak when he was overpowered by the loud voice of John- 
son, who was at the opposite end of the table, and did not 
perceive his attempt ; whereupon he threw down, as it were, his 
hat and his argument, and, darting an angry glance at Johnson, 
exclaimed in a bitter tone, " Take it.'' 

Just then one of the disputants was beginning to speak, when 
Johnson uttering some sound, as if about to interrupt him. 
Goldsmith, according to Boswell, seized the opportunity to vent 
his own envi/ and spleen under pretext of supporting another 
person. " Sir," said he to Johnson, " the gentleman has heard 
you patiently for an hour ; pray allow us now to hear him." 
It was a reproof in the lexicographer's own style, and he may 
have felt that he merited it ; but he was not accustomed to be 
reproved. " Sir," said he, sternly, " I was not interrupting the 
gentleman ; I was only giving him a signal of my attention. 
Sir, you are impertinent.'' Goldsmith made no reply, but after 
some time went away, having another engagement. 

That evening, as Boswell was on the way with Johnson and 
Langton to the club, he seized the occasion to make some dis- 
paraging remarks on Goldsmith, which he thought would just 
then be acceptable to the great lexicographer. " It was a pity," 
he said, "that Goldsmith would, on every occasion, endeavor to 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 241 

shine, by which he so often exposed himself." Langton con- 
trasted him with Addison, who, content with the fame of his 
writings, acknowledged himself unfit for conversation ; and on 
being taxed by a lady with silence in company, replied, " Madam, 
I have but nine pence in ready money, but I can draw for a 
thousand pounds." To this Boswell rejoined, that Goldsmith 
had a great deal of gold in his cabinet, but w^as always taking 
out his purse. "Yes, sir," chuckled Johnson, "and that so 
often an empty purse." 

By the time Johnson arrived at the club, however, his angry 
feelings had subsided, and his native generosity and sense of 
justice had got the uppermost. He found Goldsmith in com- 
pany with Burke, Garrick, and other members, but sitting 
silent and apart, "brooding," as Boswell says, "over the repri- 
mand he had received." Johnson's good heart yearned towards 
him ; and knowing his placable nature, " I'll make Goldsmith 
forgive me," whispered he ; then, with a loud voice, " Dr. Gold- 
smith," said he, "something passed to-day where you and I 
dined — / ash your pardonJ^ The ire of the poet was extin- 
guished in an instant, and his grateful aft'ection for the mag- 
nanimous though sometimes overbearing moralist, rushed to his 
heart. "It must be much from you, sir," said he, " that I take 
ill!" "And so," adds Boswell, "the difl'erence was over, and 
they were on as easy terms as ever, and Goldsmith rattled away 
as usual." We do not think these stories tell to the poet's 
disadvantage, even though related by Boswell. 

Goldsmith, with all his modesty, could not be ignorant of 
his proper merit ; and must have felt annoyed at times at being 
undervalued and elbowed aside, by light-minded or dull men, 
in their blind and exclusive homage to the literary autocrat. 
It was a fine reproof he gave to Boswell on one occasion, for 
talking of Johnson as entitled to the honor of exclusive supe- 
riority. " Sir, you are for making a monarchy what should be 
a republic." On another occasion, when he was conversing in 
company with great vivacity, and apparently to the satisfaction 
of those around him, an honest Swiss who sat near, one George 
Michael Moser, keeper of the Royal Academy, perceiving Dr. 
Johnson rolling himself as if about to speak, exclaimed, " Stay, 
stay ! Toctor Shonson is going to say something." "And are 



242 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

you sure, sir," replied Goldsmith, sharply, "that you can 
comprehend what he says % " 

This clever rebuke, which gives the main zest to the anec- 
dote, is omitted by Boswell, who probably did not perceive the 
jDoint of it. 

He relates another anecdote of the kind on the authority 
of Johnson himself. The latter and Goldsmith were one 
evening in company with the Rev. George Graham, a master 
of Eton, who, notwithstanding the sobriety of his cloth, had 
got intoxicated " to about the pitch of looking at one man and 
talking to another." "Doctor," cried he in an ecstasy of 
devotion and good-will, but goggling by mistake upon Gold- 
smith, "I should be glad to see you at Eton." "I shall be 
glad to wait upon you," replied Goldsmith. " No, no ! " cried 
the other eagerly ; " 'tis not you I mean. Doctor Minor^ 'tis 
Doctor Major there." " You may easily conceive," said 
Johnson in relating the anecdote, "what eft'ect this had upon 
Goldsmith, who was irascible as a hornet." The only comment, 
however, which he is said to have made, partakes more of 
quaint and dry humor than bitterness : " That Graham," said 
he, "is enough to make one commit suicide." What more 
could be said to express the intolerable nuisance of a consum- 
mate hore ? 

We have now given the last scenes between Goldsmith and 
Johnson which stand recorded by Boswell. The latter called 
on the poet a few days after the dinner at Dilly's, to take leave 
of him prior to departing for Scotland ; yet, even in this last 
interview, he contrives to get up a charge of "jealousy and 
envy." Goldsmith, he would fain persuade us, is very angry 
that Johnson is going to travel with him in Scotland ; and 
endeavors to persuade him that he will be a dead weight " to 
lug along through the Highlands and Hebrides." Any one 
else, knowing the character and habits of Johnson, would have 
thought the same ; and no one but Boswell would have supposed 
Ms office of bear-leader to the ursa major a thing to be envied.^ 

1 One of Peter Pindar's (Dr. Wolcot) most amusing jeux d'esprit is 
his congratulatory epistle to Boswell on this tour, of which we subjoin 
a few lines. 

" O Boswell, Bozzy, Bruce, whate'er thy name, 
Thou mighty shark for anecdote and fame ; 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 243 



CHAPTER XLII 

Project of a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences — Disappointment — 
Negligent authorship — Application for a pension — Beattie's Essay 
on Truth — Public adulation — A high-minded rebuke 

The works which Goldsmith had still in hand being already 
paid for, and the money gone, some new scheme must be 
devised to provide for the past and the future — for impending 
debts which threatened to crush him, and expenses which were 
continually increasing. He now projected a work of greater 
compass than any he had yet undertaken ; a " Dictionary 
of* Arts and Sciences" on a comprehensive scale, which was 
to occupy a number of volumes. For this he received prom- 
ises of assistance from several powerful hands. Johnson 
was to contribute an article on ethics ; Burke, an abstract of 
his "Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful," an essay on the 
Berkeleyan system of philosophy, and others on political 
science ; Sir Joshua Reynolds, an essay on painting ; and Gar- 
rick, while he undertook on his own part to furnish an essay 
on acting, engaged Dr. Burney to contribute an article on 
music. Here was a great array of talent positively engaged, 
while other writers of eminence were to be sought for the vari- 
ous departments of science. Goldsmith was to edit the whole. 
An undertaking of this kind, while it did not incessantly task 
and exhaust his inventive powers by original composition, 
would give agreeable and profitable exercise to his taste and 
judgment in selecting, compiling, and arranging, and he calcu- 
lated to diffuse over the whole the acknowledged graces of his 
style. 

Thou jackal, leading lion Johnson forth, 
To eat M'Pherson 'midst his native north ; 
To frighten grave professors with his roar, 
And shake the Hebrides from shore to shore. 

v^ ^ "Tf: "Sf: T^ 

Bless'd be thy labors, most adventurous Bozzy, 

Bold rival of Sir John and Dame Piozzi ; 

Heavens ! with what laurels shall thy head be crown'd ! 

A grove, a forest, shall thy ears surround ! 

Yes! whilst the Rambler shall a comet blaze, 

And gild a world of darkness with his rays, 

Thee, too, that world with wonderment shall hail. 

A lively, bouncing cracker at his tail! " 



244 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

He drew up a prospectus of the plan, which is said by 
Bishop Percy, who saw it, to have been written with uncommon 
abiUty, and to have had that perspicuity and elegance for 
which his writings are rem^arkable. This paper, unfortunately, 
is no longer in existence. 

Goldsmith's expectations, always sanguine respecting any 
new plan, were raised to an extraordinary height by tlie 
present project ; and well they might be, when we consider the 
powerful coadjutors already pledged. They were doomed, 
however, to complete disappointment. Davies, the bibliopole 
of Russell-street, lets us into the secret of this failure. " The 
booksellers," said he, "notwithstanding they had a very good 
opinion of his abilities, yet were startled at the bulk, import- 
ance, and expense of so great an undertaking, the fate of which 
was to depend upon the industry of a man with whose indolence 
of temper and method of procrastination they had long been 
acquainted," 

Goldsmith certainly gave reason for some such distrust by 
the heedlessness with which he conducted his literary undertak- 
ings. Those unfinished, but paid for, would be suspended to 
make way for some job that was to provide for present neces- 
sities. Those thus hastily taken up would be as hastily ex- 
ecuted, and the whole, however pressing, would be shoved aside 
and left "at loose ends," on some sudden call to social enjoy- 
ment or recreation. 

Cradock tells us that on one occasion, when Goldsmith was 
hard at work on his natural history, he sent to Dr. Percy and 
himself, entreating them to finish some pages of his work which 
lay upon his table, and for which the press was urgent, he be- 
ing detained by other engagements at Windsor. They met by 
appointment at his chambers in the Temple, where they found 
every thing in disorder, and costly books lying scattered about 
on the tables and on the floor ; many of the books on natural 
history which he had recently consulted lay open among un- 
corrected proof-sheets. The subject in hand, and from which 
he had suddenly broken off, related to birds. " Do you know 
any thing about birds ? " asked Dr. Percy, smiling. " Not an 
atom," replied Cradock; "do you?" "Not I! I scarcely 
know a goose from a swan : however, let us try what we can 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 245 

do." They set to work and completed their friendly task. 
Goldsmith, however, when he came to revise it, made such 
alterations that they could neither of them recognize their own 
share. The engagement at Windsor, which had thus caused 
Goldsmith to break off suddenly from his multifarious engage- 
ments, was a party of pleasure with some literary ladies. Another 
anecdote was current, illustrative of the carelessness with which 
he executed works requiring accuracy and research. On the 22d 
of June he had received payment in advance for a " Grecian 
History " in two volumes, though only one was finished. As 
he was pushing on doggedly at the second volume. Gibbon, the 
hisforian, called in. "You are the man of all others I wish to 
see," cried the poet, glad to be saved the trouble of reference to 
his books. " What was the name of that Indian king who 
gave Alexander the Great so much trouble T' "Montezuma," 
replied Gibbon, sportively. The heedless author was about 
committing the name to paper without reflection, when Gibbon 
pretended to recollect himself, and gave the true name, Porus. 

This story, very probably, was a sportive exaggeration ; but 
it was a multiplicity of anecdotes like this and the preceding 
one, some true and some false, which had impaired the con- 
fidence of booksellers in Goldsmith, as a man to be relied on for 
a task requiring wide and accurate research, and close and long 
continued application. The project of the " Universal Diction- 
ary," therefore, met with no encouragement, and fell through. 

The failure of this scheme, on which he had built such 
spacious hopes, sank deep into Goldsmith's heart. He was 
still further grieved and mortified by the failure of an effort 
made by some of his friends to obtain for him a pension from 
government. There had been a talk of the disposition of the 
ministry to extend the bounty of the crown to distinguished 
literary men in pecuniary difficulty, without regard to their 
political creed : when the merits and claims of Goldsmith, how- 
ever, were laid before them, they met no favor. The sin of 
sturdy independence lay at his door. He had refused to become 
a ministerial hack when offered a carte blanche by Parson 
Scott, the cabinet emissary. The wondering parson had left 
him in poverty and "^^8 garret,^^ and there the ministry were 
disposed to suffer him to remain. 



246 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

In the mean time Dr. Beattie comes out with his " Essay on 
Truth," and all the orthodox world are thrown into a paroxysm 
of contagious ecstasy. He is cried up as the great champion of 
Christianity against the attacks of modern philosophers and in- 
fidels ; he is feted and flattered in every way. He receives at 
Oxford the honorary degree of doctor of civil law, at the same 
time with Sir Joshua Reynolds. The king sends for him, praises 
his essay, and gives him a pension of two hundred pounds. 

Goldsmith feels more acutely the denial of a pension to him- 
self when one has thus been given unsolicited to a man he 
might without vanity consider so much his inferior. He was 
not one to conceal his feelings. " Here's such a stir," said he 
one day at Thrale's table, " about a fellow that has written one 
book, and I have written so many ! " 

" Ah, Doctor ! " exclaimed Johnson, in one of his caustic 
moods, " there go two and forty sixpences, you know, to one 
guinea." This is one of the cuts at poor Goldsmith in which 
Johnson went contrary to head and heart in his love for saying 
what is called a "good thing." No one knew better than him- 
self the comparative superiority of the writings of Goldsmith ; 
but the jingle of the sixpences and the guinea was not to be 
resisted. 

" Every body," exclaimed Mrs. Thrale, " loves Dr. Beattie, 
but Goldsmith, who says he cannot bear the sight of so much 
applause as they all bestow upon him. Did he not tell us so 
himself no one would believe he was so exceedingly ill-natured." 

He told them so himself because he was too open and unre- 
served to disguise his feelings, and because he really considered 
the praise lavished on Beattie extravagant, as in fact it was. 
It was all, of course, set down to sheer envy and uncharitable- 
ness. To add to his annoyance, he found his friend, Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, joining in the universal adulation. He had painted 
a full length portrait of Beattie decked in the doctor's robes in 
which he had figured at Oxford, with the "Essay on Truth" 
under his arm and the angel of truth at his side, while Voltaire 
figured as one of the demons of infidelity, sophistry, and false- 
hood, driven into utter darkness. 

Goldsmith had known Voltaire in early life ; he had been his 
admirer and his biographer; he grieved to find him receiving 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 247 

such an insult from the classic pencil of his friend. "It is un- 
worthy of you," said he to Sir Joshua, "to debase so high a 
genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie 
and his book will be forgotten in ten years, while Voltaire's 
fame will last for ever. Take care it does not perpetuate this 
picture to the shame of such a man as you." This noble and 
high-minded rebuke is the only instance on record of any 
reproachful words between the poet and the painter ; and we 
are happy to find that it did not destroy the harmony of their 
intercourse. 

CHAPTER XLIII 

Toil without hope — Tlie Poet in the green-room ; in the flower gar- 
den at Vanxhall; dissipation without gayety — Cradock in town; 
friendly sympathy ; a parting scene ; an invitation to pleasure 

Thwarted in the plans and disappointed in the hopes which 
had recently cheered and animated him, Goldsmith found the 
labor at his half-finished tasks doubly irksome from the con- 
sciousness that the completion of them could not relieve him 
from his pecuniary embarrassments. His impaired health, also, 
rendered him less capable than formerly of sedentary application, 
and continual perplexities disturbed the flow of thought neces- 
sary for original composition. He lost his usual gayety and 
good-humor, and became, at times, peevish and irritable. Too 
proud of spirit to seek sympathy or relief from his friends, for 
the pecuniary difficulties he had brought upon himself by his 
errors and extravagance; and unwilling, perhaps, to make 
known their amount, he buried his cares and anxieties in his 
own bosom, and endeavored in company to keep up his usual 
air of gayety and unconcern. This gave his conduct an ap- 
pearance of fitfulness and caprice, varying suddenly from moodi- 
ness to mirth, and from silent gravity to shallow laughter ; 
causing surprise and ridicule in those who were not aware of the 
sickness of heart which lay beneath. 

His poetical reputation, too, was sometimes a disadvantage 
to him ; it drew upon him a notoriety which he was not always 
in the mood or the vein to act up to. " Good heavens, Mr. 
Foote," exclaimed an actress at the Hay market theatre, " what 



248 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

a humdrum kind of man Dr. Goldsmith appears in our green- 
room compared with the figure he makes in his poetry ! " " The 
reason of that, madam," replied Foote, "is because the Muses 
are better company than the players." 

Beauclerc's letters to his friend. Lord Charlemont, who was 
absent in Ireland, give us now and then an indication of the 
whereabout of the poet during the present year. " I have been 
but once to the club since you left England," writes he ; " we 
were entertained, as usual, with Goldsmith's absurdity." With 
Beauclerc every thing was absurd that was not polished and 
pointed. In another letter he threatens, unless Lord Charle- 
mont returns to England, to bring over the whole club, and let 
them loose upon him to drive him home by their peculiar habits 
of annoyance — Johnson shall spoil his books ; Goldsmith shall 
2?ull his flowers; and last, and most intolerable of all, Boswell 
shall — talk to him. It would appear that the poet, who had 
a passion for flowers, was apt to pass much of his time in the 
garden when on a visit to a country seat, much to the detriment 
of the flower-beds and the despair of the gardener. 

The summer wore heavily away with Goldsmith. He had 
not his usual solace of a country retreat ; his health was im- 
paired and his spirits depressed. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who 
perceived the state of his mind, kindly gave him much of his 
company. In the course of their interchange of thought. Gold- 
smith suggested to him the story of Ugolino, as a subject for 
his pencil. The painting founded on it remains a memento of 
their friendship. 

On the 4th of August we flnd them together at Vauxhall ; at 
that time a place in high vogue, and which had once been to 
Goldsmith a scene of oriental splendor and delight. We have, 
in fact, in the " Citizen of the World," a picture of it as it had 
struck him in former years and in his happier moods. " Upon 
entering the gardens," says the Chinese philosopher, " I found 
every sense occupied with more than expected pleasure ; the 
lights every where glimmering through the scarcely-moving 
trees ; the full-bodied concert bursting on the stillness of the 
night ; the natural concert of the birds in the more retired part 
of the grove, vieing with that which was formed by art ; the 
company gayly dressed, looking satisfaction, and the tables 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 249 

spread with various delicacies, all conspired to fill my imagina- 
tion with the visionary happiness of the Arabian lawgiver, and 
lifted me into an ecstasy of admiration." ^ 

Every thing now, however, is seen with different eyes ; with 
him it is dissipation without pleasure ; and he finds it impossible 
any longer, by mingling in the gay and giddy throng of appar- 
ently prosperous and happy beings, to escape from the carking 
care which is clinging to his heart. 

His kind friend, Cradock, came up to town towards autumn, 
when all the fashionable world was in the country, to give his 
wife. the benefit of a skilful dentist. He took lodgings in 
Norfolk- street, to be in Goldsmith's neighborhood, and passed 
most of his mornings with him. " I found him," he says, 
"much altered and at times very low. He wished me to look 
over and revise some of his works ; but, with a select friend or 
two, I was more pressing that he should publish by subscription 
his two celebrated poems of the ' Traveller ' and the ' Deserted 
Village,' with notes." The idea of Cradock was, that the sub- 
scription would enable wealthy persons, favorable to Goldsmith, 
to contribute to his pecuniary relief without wounding his pride. 
" Goldsmith," said he, " readily gave up to me his private copies, 
and said, ' Pray do what you please with them.' But whilst he 
sat near me, he rather submitted to than encouraged my zealous 
proceedings. 

" I one morning called upon him, however, and found him 
infinitely better than I had expected ; and, in a kind of exulting 
style, he exclaimed, ' Here are some of the best of my prose 
writings ; / have been hard at work since midnight, and I 
desire you to examine them.' 'These,' said I, 'are excellent 
indeed.' ' They are,' replied he, 'intended as an introduction to 
a body of arts and sciences.' " 

Poor Goldsmith was, in fact, gathering together the fragments 
of his shipwreck ; the notes and essays, and memoranda col- 
lected for his dictionary, and proposed to found on them a work 
in two volumes, to be entitled " A Survey of Experimental 
Philosophy." 

The plan of the subscription came to nothing, and the pro- 
jected survey never was executed. The head might yet devise, 

1 Citizen of the World, Letter Ixxi. 



250 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

but the heart was failing him ; his talent at hoping, which gave 
him buoyancy to carry out his enterprises, was almost at an end. 

Cradock's farewell scene with him is told in a simple but 
touching manner. 

" The day before I was to set out for Leicestershire, I insisted 
upon his dining with us. He replied, ' I will, but on one con- 
dition, that you will not ask me to eat any thing.' ' Nay,' 
said I, ' this answer is absolutely unkind, for I had hoped, as we 
are supplied from the Crown and Anchor, that you would have 
named something you might have relished.' 'Well,' was the 
reply, ' if you will but explain it to Mrs. Cradock, I will cer- 
tainly wait upon you.' 

" The doctor found, as usual, at my apartments, newspapers 
and pamphlets, and with a pen and ink he amused himself as 
well as he could. I had ordered from the tavern some fish, a 
roasted joint of lamb, and a tart ; and the doctor either sat 
down or walked about just as he pleased. After dinner he took 
some wine with biscuits ; but I was obliged soon to leave him for a 
while, as I had matters to settle prior to my next day's journey. 
On my return coffee was ready, and the doctor appeared more 
cheerful (for Mrs, Cradock was always rather a favorite with 
him), and in the evening he endeavored to talk and remark as 
usual, but all was force. He stayed till midnight, and I in- 
sisted on seeing him safe home, and we most cordially shook 
hands at the Temple gate." Cradock little thought that this 
was to be their final parting. He looked back to it with 
mournful recollections in after years, and lamented that he had 
not remained longer in town, at every inconvenience, to solace 
the poor broken-spirited poet. 

The latter continued in town all the autumn. At the open- 
ing of the Opera House, on the 20th of November, Mrs. Yates, 
an actress whom he held in great esteem, delivered a poetical 
exordium of his composition. Beauclerc, in a letter to Lord 
Charlemont, pronounced it very good, and predicted that it 
would soon be in all the papers. It does not appear, however, 
to have bsen ever published. In his fitful state of mind Goldsmith 
may have taken no care about it, and thus it has been lost to 
the world, although it was received with great applause by a 
crowded and brilliant audience. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 251 

A gleam of sunshine breaks through the gloom that was 
gathering over the poet. Towards the end of the year he 
receives another Christmas invitation to Barton. A country- 
Christmas ! with all the cordiality of the fireside circle, and 
the joyous revelry of the oaken hall — what a contrast to the 
loneliness of a bachelor's chambers in the Temple ! It is not to 
be resisted. But how is poor Goldsmith to raise the ways and 
means ! His purse is empty ; his booksellers are already in 
advance to him. As a last resource, he applies to Garrick. 
Their mutual intimacy at Barton may have suggested him as 
an alternative. The old loan of forty pounds has never been 
paicT; and Newbery's note, pledged as a security, has never 
been taken up. An additional loan of sixty pounds is now 
asked for, thus increasing the loan to one hundred ; to insure 
the payment, he now offers, besides Newbery's note, the trans- 
fer of the comedy of the " Good-natured Man" to Drury Lane, 
with such alterations as Garrick may suggest. Garrick, in re- 
ply, evades the offer of the altered comedy, alludes significantly 
to a new one which Goldsmith had talked of writing for him, 
and offers to furnish the money required on his own acceptance. 

The reply of Goldsmith bespeaks a heart brimful of gratitude 
and overflowing with fond anticipations of Barton and the smiles 
of its fair residents. "My dear friend," wTites he, "I thank 
you. I wish I could do something to serve you. I shall have 
a comedy for you in a season, or two at farthest, that I believe 
will be worth your acceptance, for I fancy I will make it a fine 
thing. You shall have the refusal. ... I will draw upon 
you one month after date for sixty pounds, and your acceptance 
will be ready money, part of which I want to go down to Bar- 
ton with. May God preserve my honest little man, for he has 
my heart. Ever, 

"Oliver Goldsmith." 

And having thus scrambled together a little pocket-money, 
by hard contrivance, poor Goldsmith turns his back upon care 
and trouble, and Temple quarters, to forget for a time his deso- 
late bachelorhood in the family circle and a Christmas fireside 
at Barton. 



252 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



CHAPTER XLIV 

A return to drudgery; forced gayety; retreat to the country; the 
poem of Retaliation — Portrait of Garrick ; of Goldsmith ; of Rey- 
nolds — Illness of the Poet; his death; grief of his friends — A last 
word respecting the Jessamy Bride 

The Barton festivities are over; Christmas, with all its 
home-felt revelry of the heart, has passed like a dream ; the 
Jessamy Bride has beamed her last smile upon the poor poet, 
and the early part of 1774 finds him in his now dreary bach- 
elor abode in the Temple, toiling fitfully and hopelessly at a 
multiplicity of tasks. His "Animated Nature," so long de- 
layed, so often interrupted, is at length announced for publica- 
tion, though it has yet to receive a few finishing touches. He is 
preparing a third " History of England," to be compressed and 
condensed in one volume, for the use of schools. He is revising 
his " Inquiry into Polite Learning," for which he receives the 
pittance of five guineas, much needed in his present scantiness 
of purse ; he is arranging his " Survey of Experimental Philos- 
ophy," and he is translating the " Comic Romance " of Scarron. 
Such is a part of the various labors, of a drudging, depressing 
kind, by which his head is made weary and his heart faint. 
" If there is a mental drudgery," says Sir Walter Scott, " which 
lowers the spirits and lacerates the nerves, like the toil of a 
slave, it is that which is exacted by literary composition, when 
the heart is not in unison with the work upon which the head 
is employed. Add to the unhappy author's task sickness, 
sorrow, or the pressure of unfavorable circumstances, and the 
labor of the bondsman becomes light in comparison." Goldsmith 
again makes an eftbrt to rally his spirits by going into gay 
society. " Our club," writes Beauclerc to Charlemont, on the 
12th of February, " has dwindled away to nothing. Sir Joshua 
and Goldsmith have got into such a round of pleasures that 
they have no time." This shows how little Beauclerc was the 
companion of the poet's mind, or could judge of him below the 
surface. Reynolds, the kind participator in joyless dissipation, 
could have told a different story of his companion's heart-sick 
gayety. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 253 

In this forced mood Goldsmith gave entertainments in his 
chambers in the Temple ; the last of which was a dinner to 
Johnson, Reynolds, and others of his intimates, who partook 
with sorrow and reluctance of his imprudent hospitality. The 
first course vexed them by its needless profusion. When a 
second, equally extravagant, was served up, Johnson and Rey- 
nolds declined to partake of it ; the rest of the company, under- 
standing their motives, followed their example, and the dishes 
went from the table untasted. Goldsmith felt sensibly this 
silent and well-intended rebuke. 

The gayeties of society, however, cannot medicine for any 
length of time a mind diseased. Wearied by the distractions 
and harassed by the expenses of a town life, which he had not 
the discretion to regulate, Goldsmith took the resolution, too 
tardily adopted, of retiring to the serene quiet, and cheap and 
healthful pleasures of the country, and of passing only two 
months of the year in London. He accordingly made arrange- 
ments to sell his right in the Temple chambers, and in the 
month of March retired to his country quarters at Hyde, there 
to devote himself to toil. At this dispirited juncture, when 
inspiration seemed to be at an end, and the poetic fire extin- 
guished, a spark fell on his combustible imagination and set it 
in a blaze. 

He belonged to a temporary association of men of talent, some 
of them members of the Literary Club, who dined together 
occasionally at the St. James's Coffee-house. At these dinners, 
as usual, he was one of the last to arrive. On one occasion, when 
lie was more dilatory than usual, a whim seized the company 
to write epitaphs on him, as " The late Dr. Goldsmith," and 
several were thrown off in a playful vein, hitting off his pecu- 
liarities. The only one extant was written by Garrick, and has 
been preserved, very probably, by its pungency : 

" Here lies poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, 
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor poll." 

Goldsmith did not relish the sarcasm, especially as coming 
from such a quarter. He was not very ready at repartee ; but 
he took his time, and in the interval of his various tasks, con- 
cocted a series of epigrammatic sketches, under the title of 



254 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

"Retaliation," in which the characters of his distinguished in- 
timates were admirably hit off, with a mixture of generous 
praise and good-humored raillery. In fact the poem, for its 
graphic truth ; its nice discrimination ; its terse good sense, 
and its shrewd knowledge of the world, must have electrified 
the club almost as much as the first appearance of " The Trav- 
eller," and let them still deeper into the character and talents 
of the man they had been accustomed to consider as their butt. 
" Retaliation," in a word, closed his accounts with the club, 
and balanced all his previous deficiencies. 

The portrait of David G-arrick is one of the most elaborate 
in the poem. When the poet came to touch it off, he had 
some lurking piques to gratify, which the recent attack had 
revived. He may have forgotten David's cavalier treatment of 
him, in the early days of his comparative obscurity ; he may 
have forgiven his refusal of his plays ; but Garrick had been 
capricious in his conduct in the times of their recent inter- 
course : sometimes treating him with gross familiarity, at other 
times affecting dignity and reserve, and assuming airs of supe- 
riority ; frequently he had been facetious and witty in company 
at his expense, and lastly he had been guilty of the couplet 
just quoted. Goldsmith, therefore, touched off the lights and 
shadows of his character with a free hand, and, at the same 
time, gave a side hit at his old rival, Kelly, and his critical 
persecutor, Kenrick, in making them sycophantic satellites of 
the actor. Goldsmith, however, was void of gall even in his 
revenge, and his very satire was more humorous than caustic : 

" Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can, 
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man ; 
As an actor, confess'd without rival to shine ; 
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line : 
Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart, 
The man had his failings, a dupe to his art. 
Like an ill-judging beauty, his colors he spread, 
And beplaster'd with rouge his own? natural red. 
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting ; 
'Twas only that when he was off he was acting. 
With no reason on earth to go out of his way, 
He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day : 
Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick 
If they were not his own by finessing and trick : 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 255 

He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, 
For he knew, when he pleased, he could whistle them back. 
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, 
And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame ; 
Till his relish, grown callous almost to disease, 
Who pepper' d the highest was surest to please. 
But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, 
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. 
Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave, 
What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave ! 
How did Grub-street re-echo the shouts that you raised, 
While he was be-Rosciused and you were be-praised ! 
But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies, 
To act as an angel and mix with the skies : 
Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill, 
Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will ; 
Old Shakspeare receive him with praise and with love, 
And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above." 

This portion of " Retaliation " soon brought a retort from 
Garrick, which we insert, as giving something of a likeness of 
Goldsmith, though in broad caricature : 

*' Here, Hermes, says Jove, who with nectar was mellow, 
Go fetch me some clay — I will make an odd fellow : 
Right and wrong shall be jumbled, much gold and some dross, 
Without cause be he pleased, without cause be he cross ; 
Be sure, as I work, to throw in contradictions, 
A great love of truth, yet a mind turn'd to fictions ; 
Now mix these ingredients, which, warm'd in the baking, 
Turn'd to learnmg and gaming^ religion and raking. 
With the love of a wench let his writings be chaste ; 
Tip his tongue with strange matter, his lips with fine taste ; 
That the rake and the poet o'er all may prevail. 
Set fire to the head and set fire to the tail ; 
Tor the joy of each sex on the world I'll bestow it. 
This scholar, rake. Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet. 
Though a mixture so odd, he shall merit great fame. 
And among brother mortals be Goldsmith his name ; 
When on earth this strange meteor no more shall appear, 
You, Hermes, shall fetch him, to make us sport here." 

The charge of raking, so repeatedly advanced in the fore- 
going lines, must be considered a sportive one, founded, per- 
haps, on an incident or two within Garrick's knowledge, but 
not borne out by the course of Goldsmith's life. He seems to 



256 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

have had a tender sentiment for the sex, but perfectly free 
from libertinism. Neither was he an habitual gamester. The 
strictest scrutiny has detected no settled vice of the kind. He 
was fond of a game of cards, but an unskilful and careless 
player. Cards in those days were universally introduced into 
society. High play was, in fact, a fashionable amusement, as 
at one time was deep drinking ; and a man might occasionally 
lose large sums, and be beguiled into deep potations, without 
incurring the character of a gamester or a drunkard. Poor 
Goldsmith, on his advent into high society, assumed fine notions 
with fine clothes ; he was thrown occasionally among high 
players, men of fortune who could sport their cool hundreds as 
carelessly as his early comrades at Ballymahon could their half- 
crowns. Being at all times magnificent in money matters, he 
may have played with them in their own way, without consider- 
ing that what was sport to them to him was ruin. Indeed part 
of his financial embarrassments may have arisen from losses of 
the kind, incurred inadvertently, not in the indulgence of a 
habit. " I do not believe Goldsmith to have deserved the name 
of gamester," said one of his contemporaries ; " he liked cards 
very well, as other people do, and lost and won occasionally ; but 
as far as I saw or heard, and I had many opportunities of hear- 
ing, never any considerable sum. If he gamed with any one, it 
was probably with Beauclerc, but I do not know that such was 
the case." 

" Retaliation," as we have already observed, was thrown off 
in parts, at intervals, and was never completed. Some char- 
acters, originally intended to be introduced, remained unat- 
tempted ; others were but partially sketched — such was the one 
of Reynolds, the friend of his heart, and which he commenced 
with a felicity which makes us regret that it should remain 
unfinished. 

" Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind, 
He has not left a wiser or better behind. 
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; 
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; 
Still born to improve us in every part, 
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. 
To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering. 
When they judged without skill he was still hard of hearing : 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 257 

When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff. 
He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff. 
By flattery unspoiled ' ' 

The friendly portrait stood unfinished on the easel ; the hand 
of the artist had failed ! An access of a local complaint, under 
which he had suffered for some time past, added to a general 
prostration of health, brought Goldsmith back to town before 
he had well settled himself in the country. The local com-, 
plaint subsided, but was followed by a low nervous fever. He 
was not aware of his critical situation, and intended to be at 
thQ.club on the 25th of March, on which occasion Charles Fox, 
Sir Charles Bunbury (one of the Horneck connection), and two 
other new members were to be present. In the afternoon, how- 
ever, he felt so unwell as to take to his bed, and his symptoms 
soon acquired sufficient force to keep him there. His malady 
fluctuated for several days, and hopes were entertained of his 
recovery, but they proved fallacious. He had skilful medical 
aid and faithful nursing, but he would not follow the advice of 
his physicians, and persisted in the use of James's powders, 
which he had once found beneficial, but which were now injuri- 
ous to him. His appetite was gone, his strength failed him, 
but his mind remained clear, and was perhaps too active for his 
frame. Anxieties and disappointments which had previously 
sapped his constitution, doubtless aggravated his present com- 
plaint and rendered him sleepless. In reply to an inquiry of 
his physician, he acknowledged that his mind was ill at ease. 
This was his last reply : he was too weak to talk, and in gen- 
eral took no notice of what was said to him. He sank at last 
into a deep sleep, and it was hoped a favorable crisis had arrived. 
He awoke, however, in strong convulsions, which continued 
without intermission until he expired, on the fourth of April, 
at five o'clock in the morning ; being in the forty-sixth year of 
his age. 

His death was a shock to the literary world, and a deep 
affliction to a wide circle of intimates and friends ; for, with all 
his foibles and peculiarities, he was fully as much beloved as he 
was admired. Burke, on hearing the news, burst into tears. 
Sir Joshua Reynolds threw by his pencil for the day, and 
grieved more than he had done in times of great family dis- 



258 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

tress. " I was abroad at the time of his death," writes Dr. 
M'Donnell, the youth whom when in distress he had employed 
as an amanuensis, " and I wept bitterly when the intelligence 
first reached me. A blank came over my heart as if I had lost 
one of my nearest relatives, and was followed for some days by 
a feeling of despondency." Johnson felt the blow deeply and 
gloomily. In writing some time afterwards to Boswell, he ob- 
served, " Of poor Dr. Goldsmith there is little to be told more 
than the papers have made public. He died of a fever, made, I 
am afraid, more violent by uneasiness of mind. His debts 
began to be heavy, and all his resources were exhausted. Sir 
Joshua is of opinion that he owed no less than two thousand 
pounds. Was ever poet so trusted before ? " 

Among his debts were seventy-nine pounds due to his tailor, 
Mr. William Filby, from whom he had received a new suit but 
a few days before his death. "My fother," said the younger 
Filby, " though a loser to that amount, attributed no blame to 
Goldsmith ; he had been a good customer, and had he lived, 
would have paid every farthing." Others of his tradespeople 
evinced the same confidence in his integrity, notwithstanding 
his heedlessness. Two sister milliners in Temple Lane, who 
had been accustomed to deal with him, were concerned when 
told, some time before his death, of his pecuniary embarrass- 
ments. "Oh, sir," said they to Mr. Cradock, "sooner persuade 
him to let us work for him gratis than apply to any other ; we 
are sure he will pay us when he can." 

On the stairs of his apartment there was the lamentation of 
the old and infirm, and the sobbing of women ; poor objects of 
his charity, to whom he had never turned a deaf ear, even when 
struggling himself with poverty. 

But there was one mourner, whose enthusiasm for his memory, 
could it have been foreseen, might have soothed the bitterness 
of death. After the coffin had been screwed down, a lock of his 
hair was requested for a lady, a particular friend, who wished 
to preserve it as a remembrance. It was the beautiful Mary 
Horneck — the Jessamy Bride. The coffin was opened again, 
and a lock of hair cut off*; which she treasured to her dying 
day. Poor Goldsmith ! could he have foreseen that such a 
memorial of him was to be thus cherished ! 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 259 

One word more concerning this lady, to whom we have so 
often ventured to advert. She survived ahiiost to the present 
day. Hazlitt met her at Northcote's painting-room, about 
twenty years since, as Mrs. Gwyn, the widow of a General 
Gwyn of the army. She was at that time upwards of seventy 
years of age. Still, he said, she was beautiful, beautiful even 
in years. After she was gone, Hazlitt remarked how handsome 
she still was. "I do not know," said Northcote, "why she is 
so kind as to come to see me, except that I am the last link in 
the chain that connects her with all those she most esteemed 
when young — Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith — and remind 
her of the most delightful period of her life." "Not only so," 
observed Hazlitt, " but you remember what she was at twenty ; 
and you thus bring back to her the triumphs of her youth — 
that pride of beauty, which must be the more fondly cherished 
as it has no external vouchers, and lives chiefly in the bosom of 
its once lovely possessor. In her, however, the Graces had tri- 
umphed over time ; she was one of Ninon de I'Enclos's people, 
of the last of the immortals. I could almost fancy the shade 
of Goldsmith in the room, looking round with complacency." 

The Jessamy Bride survived her sister upwards of forty 
years, and died in 1840, within a few days of completing her 
eighty-eighth year. " She had gone through all the stages of 
life," says Northcote, "and had lent a grace to each." How- 
ever gayly she may have sported with the half-concealed 
admiration of the poor awkward poet in the heyday of her youth 
and beauty, and however much it may have been made a subject 
of teasing by her youthful companions, she evidently prided 
herself in after years upon having been an object of his affec- 
tionate regard ; it certainly rendered her interesting throughout 
life in the eyes of his admirers, and has hung a poetical wreath 
above her grave. 

CHAPTER XLV 

The funeral — The monument — The epitaph — Concluding remarks 

In the warm feeling of the moment, while the remains of 
the poet were scarce cold, it was determined by his friends to 
honor them by a public funeral and a tomb in Westminster 



260 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Abbey. His very pall-bearers were designated : Lord Shelburne, 
Lord Lowth, Sir Joshua Reynolds ; the Hon. Mr. Beauclerc, 
Mr. Burke, and David Garrick. This feeling cooled down, 
however, when it was discovered that he died in debt, and had 
not left wherewithal to pay for such expensive obsequies. 
Five days after his death, therefore, at five o'clock of Saturday 
evening, the 9 th of April, he was privately interred in the 
burying-ground of the Temple Church ; a few persons attending 
as mourners, among whom we do not find specified any of his 
peculiar and distinguished friends. The chief mourner was 
Sir Joshua Reynolds's nephew, Palmer, afterwards Dean of 
Cashel. One person, however, from whom it was but little to 
be expected, attended the funeral and evinced real sorrow on 
the occasion. This was Hugh Kelly, once the dramatic rival 
of the deceased, and often, it is said, his anonymous assailant 
in the newspapers. If he had really been guilty of this basest 
of literary off'ences, he was punished by the stings of remorse, 
for we are told that he shed bitter tears over the grave of the 
man he had injured. His tardy atonement only provoked the 
lash of some unknown satirist, as the following lines will 
show : 

"Hence Kelly, who years, without honor or shame. 
Had been sticking his bodkin in Oliver's fame, 
Who thought, like the Tartar, by this to inherit 
His genius, his learning, simplicity, spirit ; 
Now sets every feature to weep o'er his fate. 
And acts as a mourner to blubber in state." 

One base wretch deserves to be mentioned, the reptile 
Kenrick, who, after having repeatedly slandered Goldsmith, 
while living, had the audacity to insult his memory when dead. 
The following distich is sufficient to show his malignancy, and 
to hold him up to execration : 

" By his own art, who justly died, 
A blund'ring, artless suicide : 
Share, earthworms, share, since nov^^ he's dead, 
His megrim, maggot-bitten head." 

This scurrilous epitaph produced a burst of public indigna- 




goldsmith's burial place 




DIAGRAM OF THE POETS CORNER 

, WESTMINSTEK ABBEY 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 261 

tion, that awed for a time even the infamous Kenrick into 
silence. On the other hand, the press teemed with tributes 
in verse and prose to the memory of the deceased ; all evincing 
the mingled feeling of admiration for the author and affection 
for the man. 

Not long after his death the Literary Club set on foot a sub- 
scription, and raised a fund to erect a monument to his memory, 
in Westminster Abbey. It was executed by Nollekens, and 
consisted simply of a bust of the poet in profile, in high relief, 
in a medallion, and was placed in the area of a pointed arch, 
over the south door in Poets' Corner, between the monu- 
ments of Gay and the Duke of Argyle. Johnson furnished a 
Latin epitaph, which was read at the table of Sir Joshua Key- 
nolds, where several members of the club and other friends of 
the deceased were present. Though considered by them a 
masterly composition, they thought the literary character of the 
poet not defined with sufficient exactness, and they preferred 
that the epitaph should be in English rather than Latin, as 
" the memory of so eminent an English writer ought to be per- 
petuated in the language to which his works were likely to be 
so lasting an ornament." • 

These objections were reduced to writing, to be respectfully 
submitted to Johnson, but such was the awe entertained of his 
frown, that every one shrank from putting his name first to the 
instrument ; whereupon their names were written about it in a 
circle, making what mutinous sailors call a Bound Robin, John- 
son received it half graciously, half grimly. " He was willing," 
he said, " to modify the sense of the epitaph in any manner the 
gentlemen pleased ; hut he never would consent to disgrace the 
walls of Westminster Abbey ivith an English inscription.'^ 
Seeing the names of Dr. Warton and Edmund Burke among 
the signers, "he wondered," he said, "that Joe Warton, a 
scholar by profession, should be such a fool ; and should have 
thought that Mund Burke would have had more sense." The 
following is the epitaph as it stands inscribed on a white 
marble tablet beneath the bust : 



262 OLIVEll GOLDSMITH 

"OLIVARII GOLDSMITH, 

Poetse, Physici, Historici, 
Qui nullum fer6 scribendi genus 

Non tetigit, 
Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit : 
Sive risus essent movendi, 
Sive lacrymse, 
Affectuum potens at lenis dominator : 
Ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis, 
Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus : 
Hoc monumento meraoriam coluit 
Sodalium amor, 
Amicorum fides, 
Lectorum veneratio. 
Natus in Hibernia Fornise Longfordiensis, 
In loco cui nomen Pallas, 
Nov. XXIX, MDCCxxxi. ; 
Eblanse Uteris institutas ; 
Obiit Londiui, 

April IV, MDCCLXXIV."! 

We shall not pretend to follow these anecdotes of the life 
of Goldsmith with any critical dissertation on his writings ; 

1 The following translation is from Croker's edition of Boswell's 
Johnson : 

OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH — 

A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, 

Who left scarcely any style of writing 

untouched, 

And touched nothing that he did not adorn ; 

Of all the passions. 

Whether smiles were to be moved 

or tears, 

A powerful yet gentle master ; 

In genius, sublime, vivid, versatile. 

In style, elevated, clear, elegant — 

The love of companions, 

The fidelity of friends. 

And the veneration of readers. 

Have by this monument honored the memory. 

He was born in Ireland, 

At a place called Pallas, 

[In the parish] of Forney, [and county] of Longford, 

On the 29th Nov., 1731, 

Educated at [the University of] Dublin, 

And died in London, 

4th April, 1774. 



, OLIVER GOLDSMITH 263 

their merits have long since been fully discussed, and their sta- 
tion in the scale of literary merit permanently established. 
They have outlasted generations of works of higher power 
and wider scope, and will continue to outlast succeeding gener- 
ations, for they have that magic charm of style by which works 
are embalmed to perpetuity. Neither shall we attempt a regu- 
lar analysis of the character of the- poet, but will indulge in a 
few desultory remarks in addition to those scattered throughout 
the preceding chapters. 

Never was the trite, because sage apothegm, that " The child 
is father to the man," more fully verified than in the case of 
Goldsmith. He is shy, awkward, and blundering in childhood, 
yet full of sensibility ; he is a butt for the jeers and jokes of 
his companions, but apt to surprise and confound them by sud- 
den and witty repartees ; he is dull and stupid at his tasks, 
yet an eager and intelligent devourer of the travelling tales and 
campaigning stories of his half military pedagogue ; he may be 
a dunce, but he is already a rhymer ; and his early scintillations 
of poetry awaken the expectations of his friends. He seems 
from infancy to have been compounded of two natures, one 
bright, the other blundering ; or to have had fairy gifts laid in 
his cradle by the "good people" who haunted his birth-place, 
the old goblin mansion on the banks of the Inny. 

He carries with him the wayward elfin spirit, if we may so 
term it, throughout his career. His fairy gifts are of no avail 
at school, academy, or college : they unfit him for close study 
and practical science, and render him heedless of every thing 
that does not address itself to his poetical imagination and 
genial and festive feelings ; they dispose him to break away 
from restraint, to stroll about hedges, green lanes, and haunted 
streams, to revel with jovial companions, or to rove the country 
like a gipsy in quest of odd adventures. 

As if confiding in these delusive gifts, he takes no heed of the 
present nor care for the future, lays no regular and solid foun- 
dation of knowledge, follows out no plan, adopts and discards 
those recommended by his friends, at one time prepares for the 
ministry, next turns to the law, and then fixes upon medicine. 
He repairs to Edinburgh, the great emporium of medical science, 
but the fairy gifts accompany him ; he idles and frolics away 



264 OLIVER GOLDSMITH , 

his time there, imbibing only such knowledge as is agreeable to 
him ; makes an excursion to the poetical regions of the High- 
lands ; and having walked the hospitals for tlie customary time, 
sets off to ramble over the Continent, in quest of novelty rather 
than knowledge. His whole tour is a poetical one. He fancies 
he is playing the philosopher while he is really playing the 
poet ; and though professedly he attends lectures and visits for- 
eign universities, so deficient is he on his return, in the studies 
for which he set out, that he fails in an examination as a sur- 
geon's mate ; and while figuring as a doctor of medicine, is out- 
vied on a point of practice by his apothecary. Bafiled in every 
regular pursuit, after trying in vain some of the humbler call- 
ings of commonplace life, he is driven almost by chance to the 
exercise of his pen, and here the fairy gifts come to his assist- 
ance. For a long time, however, he seems unaware of the 
magic properties of that pen : he uses it only as a make-shift 
until he can find a legitimate means of support. He is not 
a learned man, and can write but meagrely and at second-hand 
on learned subjects ; but he has a quick convertible talent that 
seizes lightly on the points of knowledge necessary to the illus- 
tration of a theme : his writings for a time are desultory, the 
fruits of what he has seen and felt, or what he has recently and 
hastily read ; but his gifted pen transmutes every thing into 
gold, and his own genial nature reflects its sunshine through his 
pages. 

Still unaware of his powers he throws off his writings 
anonymously, to go with the writings of less favored men ; 
and it is a long time, and after a bitter struggle with poverty 
and humiliation, before he acquires confidence in his literary 
talent as a means of support, and begins to dream of 
reputation. 

From this time his pen is a wand of power in his hand, and 
he has only to use it discreetly, to make it competent to all his 
wants. But discretion is not a part of Goldsmith's nature ; 
and it seems the property of these fairy gifts to be accompanied 
by moods and temperaments to render their effect precarious. 
The heedlessness of his early days ; his disposition for social en- 
joyment ; his habit of throwing the present on the neck of the 
future, still continue. His expenses forerun his means ; he 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 265 

incurs debts on the faith of what his magic- pen is to produce, 
and then, under the pressure of his debts, sacrifices its pro- 
ductions for prices far below their vahie. It is a redeeming 
circumstance in his prodigality, that it is lavished oftener upon 
others than upon himself: he gives without thought or stint, 
and is the continual dupe of his benevolence and his trustful- 
ness in human nature. We may say of him as he says of one 
of his heroes, " He could not stifle the natural impulse which 
he had to do good, but frequently borrowed money to relieve the 
distressed ; and when he knew not conveniently where to bor- 
roijt, he has been observed to shed tears as he passed through 
the wretched suppliants who attended his gate." . . . 

" His simplicity in trusting persons whom he had no previous 
reasons to place confidence in, seems to be one of those lights 
of his character which, while they impeach his understanding, 
do honor to his benevolence. The low and the timid are ever 
suspicious ; but a heart impressed with honorable sentiments, 
expects from others sympathetic sincerity."^ 

His heedlessness in pecuniary matters, which had rendered 
his life a struggle with poverty even in the days of his obscu- 
rity, rendered the struggle still more intense when his fairy gifts 
had elevated him into the society of the wealthy and luxurious, 
and imposed on his simple and generous spirit fancied obliga- 
tions to a more ample and bounteous display. 

" How comes it," says a recent and ingenious critic,^ " that 
in all the miry paths of life which he had trod, no speck ever 
sullied the robe of his modest and graceful Muse. How amidst 
all that love of inferior company, which never to the last for- 
sook him, did he keep his genius so free from every touch of 
vulgarity ? " 

We answer that it was owing to the innate purity and good- 
ness of his nature ; there was nothing in it that assimilated to 
vice and vulgarity. Though his circumstances often compelled 
him to associate with the poor, they never could betray him 
into companionship with the depraved. His relish for humor 
and for the study of character, as we have before observed, 
brought him often into convivial company of a vulgar kind ; 

1 Goldsmith's Life of Nash. 

2 Bulwer Lytton, Edinburgh Review, Vol. Ixxxvii. 



266 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

but he discriminated between their vulgarity and their amus- 
ing qualities, or rather wrought from the whole those familiar 
pictures of life which form the staple of his most popular writ- 
ings. 

Much, too, of this intact purity of heart may be ascribed to 
the lessons of his infancy under the paternal roof; to the gentle, 
benevolent, elevated, unworldly maxims of his father, who " pass- 
ing rich with forty pounds a year," infused a spirit into his child 
which riches could not deprave nor poverty degrade. Much of his 
boyhood, too, had been passed in the household of his uncle, the 
amiable and generous Contarine ; where he talked of literature 
with the good pastor, and practised music with his daughter, 
and delighted them both by his juvenile attempts at poetry. 
These early associations breathed a grace and refinement into 
his mind and tuned it up, after the rough sports on the 
green, or the. frolics at the tavern. These led him to turn 
from the roaring glees of the club, to listen to the harp of 
his cousin Jane ; and from the rustic triumph of " throwing 
sledge," to a stroll with his flute along the pastoral banks of 
the Inny. 

The gentle spirit of his father 'walked with him through life, 
a pure and virtuous monitor ; and in all the vicissitudes of his 
career, we find him ever more chastened in mind by the sweet 
and holy recollections of the home of his infancy. 

It has been questioned whether he really had any religious 
feeling. Those who raise the question have never considered 
well his writings ; his " Vicar of Wakefield," and his pictures of 
the Village Pastor, present religion under its most endearing 
forms, and with a feeling that could only flow from the deep 
convictions of the heart. When his fair travelling companions 
at Paris urged him to read the Church Service on a Sunday, he 
replied that " he was not worthy to do it." He had seen in 
early life the sacred ofiices performed by his father and his 
brother, with a solemnity which had sanctified them in his mem- 
ory ; how could he presume to undertake such functions 1 His 
religion has been called in question by Johnson and by Boswell : 
he certainly had not the gloomy hypochondriacal piety of the 
one, nor the babbling mouth-piety of the other ; but the spirit 
of Christian charit} breathed forth in his writings and illus- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 267 

trated in his conduct, give us reason to believe he had the in- 
dwelling religion of the soul. 

We have made sufficient comments in the preceding chapters 
on his conduct in elevated circles of Jiterature and fashion. The 
fairy gifts which took him there were not accompanied by the 
gifts and graces necessary to sustain him in that artificial sphere. 
He can neither play the learned sage with Johnson, nor the fine 
gentleman with Beauclerc : though he has a mind replete with 
wisdom and natural shrewdness, and a spirit free from vul- 
garity. The blunders of a fertile but hurried intellect, and the 
awkward display of the student assuming the man of fashion, 
fix on him a character for absurdity and vanity which, like the 
charge of lunacy, it is hard to disprove, however weak the 
grounds of the charge and strong the facts in opposition to it. 

In truth, he is never truly in his place in these learned and 
fashionable circles, which talk and live for display. It is not 
the kind of society he craves. His heart yearns for domestic 
life; it craves familiar, confiding intercourse, family firesides, 
the guileless and happy company of children ; these bring out 
the heartiest and sweetest sympathies of his nature. 

" Had it been his fate," says the critic we have already 
quoted, " to meet a woman who could have J^oved him, despite 
his faults, and respected him despite his foibles, we cannot but 
think that his life and his genius would have been much more 
harmonious ; his desultory affections would have been concen- 
tred, his craving self-love appeased, his pursuits more settled, 
his character more solid. A nature like Goldsmith's, so affec- 
tionate, so confiding — so susceptible to simple, innocent enjoy- 
ments — so dependent on others for the sunshine of existence, 
does not flower if deprived of the atmosphere of home." 

The cravings of his heart in this respect are evident, we 
think, throughout his career ; and if we have dwelt with more 
significancy than others, upon his intercourse with the beauti- 
ful Horneck family, it is because we fancied we could detect, 
amid his playful attentions to one of its members, a lurking 
sentiment of tenderness, kept down by conscious poverty and a 
humiliating idea of personal defects. A hopeless feeling of this 
kind — - the last a man would communicate to his friends — 
might account for much of that fitfulness of conduct, and that 



268 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

gathering melancholy, remarked, but not comprehended by his 
associates, during the last year or two of his life ; and may 
have been one of the troubles of the mind which aggravated his 
last illness, and only terminated with his death. 

We shall conclude these desultory remarks, with a few which 
have been used by us on a former occasion. From the general 
tone of Goldsmith's biography, it is evident that his faults, at 
tlie worst, were but negative, while his merits were great and 
decided. He was no one's enemy but his own ; his errors, in 
the main, inflicted evil on none but himself, and were so blended 
with humorous, and even affecting circumstances, as to disarm 
anger and conciliate kindness. Where eminent talent is united 
to spotless virtue, we are awed and dazzled into admiration, 
but our admiration is apt to be cold and reverential; while 
there is something in the harmless infirmities of a good and 
great, but erring individual, that pleads touchingly to our nature ; 
and we turn more kindly towards the object of our idolatry, 
when we find that, like ourselves, he is mortal and is frail. 
The epithet so often heard, and in such kindly tones, of " poor 
Goldsmith," speaks volumes. Few, who consider the real com- 
pound of admirable and whimsical qualities which form his 
character, would \vish to prune away its eccentricities, trim its 
grotesque luxuriance, and clip it down to the decent formalities 
of rigid virtue. " Let not his frailties be remembered," said 
Johnson ; " he was a very great man." But, for our part, we 
rather say, " Let them be remembered," since their tendency is 
to endear; and we question whether he himself would not feel 
gratified in hearing his reader, after dwelling with admiration 
on the proofs of his greatness, close the volume with the kind- 
hearted phrase, so fondly and familiarly ejaculated, of " Poor 
Goldsmith." 



NOTES 



Page xxix. Both James Prior and John Forster each wrote a volu- 
minous life of Goldsmith. 

xxix. The Inns of Court, composed of the Inner Temple, Middle 
Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn, constitute the legal university 
of London for granting permission to practise the profession of law. 

3. Prior traced the Goldsmith family to an English origin. The 
earliest ancestor of the poet of whom anything is known, was John 
Goldsmyth, who in 154:1 held an office at Galway. 

3. The "Man in Black " refers to the History of the Man in lilack, 
No. xxvii., Goldsmith's Letters of a Citizen of the World. 

12. Mr. Dobson, in his Life of Goldsmith, notes that " in the lives of 
Forster and Prior, the year of admission is given as 1745 ; but this has 
been shown . . . to be an error." 

12. A pensioner, one who pays his own way through college. Irving 
explains the term " sizer " in the following paragraph. 

12. The window frame may now be seen in Trinity College library. 

14. Although Burke and Goldsmith were at Trinity College at the 
same time, there is no evidence that they were associates or even ac- 
quaintances. It was not until after 1760, in London, that they became 
intimates in the famous Literary Club. Burke (1729-1797) became the 
most commanding figure in English politics. We, as Americans, should 
remember him as one of our truest and firmest friends in the Ante- 
Revolutionary days. Englishmen recall with gratitude that he advo- 
cated a policy of justice by which they afterward profited in the ruling 
of their colonies. 

21 . Tony Lumpkin and his associates appear in She Stoops to Con- 
quer, Act. I. Scene 2. The song that Tony sings contains three stanzas, 
of which Irving quotes the last, probably thinking the first two would 
touch Goldsmith's life too closely. 

21. A *' jorum " is a large bowl of punch. 

25. Lenten entertainment is suggestive of fasting or frugal living. 

31 . A turn-spit-dog was a heavy, short dog trained to turn a tread- 
mill-wheel by which a spit (a sharp bar of wood or iron on which meat 
was roasted) was turned. 

35. The use of Latin in lectures still had a tenacious hold in the uni- 
versities. Johnson refused to ** disgrace the walls of Westminster with 
an English inscription " for an epitaph on Goldsmith. 

40. In the seventeenth century the Dutch people had a mania for 

269 



270 NOTES 

raising rare and fancy species of tulip bulbs. Prices for some bulbs 
rose as high as five hundred pounds. Finally the craze so spread over 
Europe that it became a menace to business and to government. The 
tulip trade was then put under governmental control. 

44. There is no evidence at Padua University that Goldsmith took 
a doctor's degree there. His degree, in all probability, was conferred 
by his friends as one of their periodical jokes on the "Philosophic 
Vagabond." 

47. Anodyne is any medicine that relieves pain ; here anodyne neck- 
lace is used in a humorous sense for a hangman's rope. 

52. Goldsmith's statement about Dryden's indigence is overdrawn. 
Dryden did lead a disturbed life in politics and at home, but that he 
suffered from want of a good living is not well established. 

58. The Padareen mare was " a celebrated Irish racer." — Citizen 
of the World, Letter V. 

58. "The music of Mattel is dissonance to what I felt when our old 
dairy maid sung me into tears with Johnny Armstrong's Last Good- 
night, or the Cruelty of Barbara Allen." — The Bee, No. ii. 

60. Prior gives an account of Raleigh's passion that explains this 
allusion. " Sir Walter's History of the World sold very slowlie at 
first, and the booksellers complained of it, and told him that he should 
be a loser by it, which put Sir Walter in a passion. He said, that since 
the world did not understand it, they should not have his second part, 
which he took before his face, and threw it into the fire, and burnt it." 

61. The union between Ireland and England took effect by Parlia- 
mentary enactment January 1, 1801. 

67. Coromandel is the eastern seacoast of the Indian peninsula. 

78. The royal martyr was Charles I, who was beheaded in 1649. 
His good rules were : Urge no healths ; Profane no divine ordinances ; 
Touch no state matters ; Reveal no secrets ; Pick no quarrels ; Make 
no companions ; Maintain no ill opinions ; Keep no bad company ; En- 
courage no vice ; Make no long meals ; Repeat no grievances ; Lay no 
wagers. 

80. Mr. Dobson says the Inquiry was published in April. Gold- 
smith was not writing the Inquiry when Dr. Percy called on him 
(page. 72), but was correcting the proofs. See Dobson's Life of Gold- 
smith, page 65. 

80. Formerly it was the practice to lead condemned crimnals to 
Tyburn prison, tied to the end of a cart. 

82. The Provoked Husband, a comedy, was begun by Sir John Van- 
burgh (1672-1728), but was completed by Colley Cibber (1671-1757) in 
1728. It was considered by Johnson as being worthy of comparison 
with Goldsmith's the Good-natured Man. 

84. The sub-title of the Citizen of the World is " Letters from a Chi- 
nese Philosopher residing in London, to his Friends in the East." 
Read Chapter V., Dobson's Life of Goldsmith, for the characteristics of 
the Citizen. 



NOTES 271 

85. Irving strains the word "note," although the men named were 
of the better sort of hack writers. One of them, William Guthrie, 
was the author of A Historical and Geographical Grammar, which was 
very popular in its day, and A History of the World from the Creation 
to the Present Time. Arthur Murphy, an actor and dramatist, wrote 
a pleasing comedy, Three Weeks after Marriage. Christopher Smart, 
a man subject to occasional tits of insanity, is unknown except as a 
butt in literature. Isaac Bickerstaff wrote a number of comedies that 
were popular in their day. 

87. The allusion in "rode and tied " is to an old method of travel- 
ling when two persons had only one horse between them. One would 
ride a given time, then, after tying the horse, would walk. His com- 
panion, coming to the place where the horse was tied, would ride a 
giveo time, long enough to pass his fellow-traveller on foot. So they 
went on to their journey's end. There is probably a further allusion 
in Garrick's remark, as he gained fame and fortune in London before 
his master, Johnson. 

88. "Great Cham" is the title of a prince of Tartary; it is now 
written "khan." 

93. The quotation is from Cowper's History of John Gilpin : 

" Thus all through merry Islington 
These gambols he did play." 

95. Johnson, out of the generosity of his heart, befriended several 
pensioners besides Anna Williams. 

101. A ".bishop " is " a hot drink made with bitter oranges, cloves, 
and port wine." 

103. Johnson's pension of three hundred pounds was granted by 
Lord Bute in 1762. 

105. Dr. Semple in his edition of Irving's Goldsmith has the follow- 
ing note on the sale of the Vicar of Wakefield : 

"The discoveries of Mr. Charles Welsh, author of A Bookseller of 
the Last Century, have seriously disturbed the traditional story of the 
sale. In an account book of Benjamin Collins, printer, marked ' Ac- 
count of copies, their cost and value, 1764,' Mr. Welsh found the fol- 
lowing entry : 'Vicar of Wakefield, 2 vols., 12 mo., l/3rd, B. Collins 
bought of Dr. Goldsmith, the author, Oct. 28, 1762, £ 21.' From another 
account book of Collins's it appears that Mr. Strahan, a printer, and 
the firm of Carnan and Newbery were also the purchasers of a third 
each. Johnson's story, of which there were several versions differing 
in details, cannot be literally true. Johnson probably sold to Newbery 
one-third interest at the rate of sixty pounds for the whole, and carried 
the proceeds to Goldsmith. The transaction took place before Bos- 
well's acquaintance with Johnson began. Moreover, the book must 
have been finished in 1762, unless Goldsmith sold it before it was 
written — a supposition unlikely, though not impossible, in view of 



272 • NOTES 

Goldsmith's known laxity in money matters. But Johnson gives no 
exact date. It is probable, therefore, that the Vicar lay unpublished 
lor four years, instead of two." 

106. Boswell credits Johnson with writing line 420, and the conclud- 
ing: ten lines of the poem of the Traveller. 

109. Nil te qusesiveris extra, Seek for nothing outside yourself. 

113. Philautos, Philalethes, Phileleutheros, Philanthropos, mean, 
respectively: Lover of Self, Lover of Truth, Lover of Freedom, Lover 
of Man. 

125. There is similarity in thought between Johnson's description of 
Goldsmith's conversational powers and Garrick's description in verse 
on page 253. 

128. The quotation is from Johnson's tablet in the Poets' Corner, 
Westminster Abbey. 

129. " Tun of man," a description of Falstaff. 

137. Irving's account of his visit to Cauonbury Castle appears in 
"The Poor Devil Author" in his Tales of a Traveller. 

142. This very apt quotation from Talleyrand, the French states- 
man, is a miich-chased saying. Cunningham, one of Goldsmith's 
editors, has traced it to Young's poetry, thence to Dr. Smith's ser- 
mons. Nevertheless, Talleyrand deserves the credit of it, as it fits 
him. 

145. Blackstone's successor under Goldsmith's apartments, Mr. 
Children, made a similar complaint. Goldsmith, like Johnson, al- 
though living in the midst of the law, does not appear to have held a 
very high opinion of the lawyers of the day, for we find him saying in 
the Good-natured Man that "lawyers are always more ready to get 
a man into trouble, than out of it." 

153. Filby's given name was William, not John, as written by Bos- 
well. 

167. Forsitan et nostrum nomen tniscebitur istis, Perhaps our name 
will be enrolled with these also. 

172. Macaulay's opinion on the controversy is given as follows in 
his Life of Goldsmith : " The village in its happy days is a true Eng- 
lish village. The village in its decay is an Irish village. The felicity 
and the misery which Goldsmith has brought close together belong to 
two different countries, and to two different stages in the progress of 
society. He had assuredly never seen in his native island such a rural 
paradise, such a seat of plenty, content, and tranquillity as his 
'Auburn.' He had assuredly never seen in England all the inhabit- 
ants of such a paradise turned out of their homes in one day and 
forced to emigrate in a body to America. The hamlet he had probably 
seen in Kent ; the ejectment he had probably seen in Munster ; but by 
joining the two, he had produced something which never was, and 
never will be seen in any part of the world." 

174. To be crowned with a wreath of bay leaves was a sign of 
victory. 



NOTES 273 

182. The soldiers of Hannibal, who wintered in Capua after the vic- 
tory of Cannae, were debilitated by their riotous living iu that city. 

185. Trouvaille, a discovery; a "find." 

188. En attendant, while waiting. 

193. Preux chevalier, a gallant knight. 

19S. " Drawcansir " is the name of a braggart in Villiers' drama, 
the Rehearsal. 

" I drink, I huff, I strut, look big and stare ; 
All this I can do, because I dare." — Act IV. Scene 1. 

195. Argumentum ad hominem, "an argument drawn from premises 
which, whether true or not, ought to be admitted by the person to 
whom they are addressed." — Century Dictionary. 

T98. ' IIsBC studia pronoctant nobiscum,' etc.. These studies are with 
us by night, in our wanderings, and in our country life. 

201. The allusion is probably to the game in which one amuses chil- 
dren by sticking a bit of paper on each forefinger, and then, after 
throwing the hands in the air, replaces not the forefingers but the 
second finger of each hand, so that Jack and Jill mysteriously disap- 
pear. This jingle accompanies the movements: 

*' Two little blackbirds sitting on a hill. 
One named Jatik, the other named Jill. 
Fly away Jack ! Fly away Jill ! 
Come back J'ack ! Come back Jill! " 

205. In the London Magazine for 1700, page 451, is an account of the 
Stratford jubilee, written and signed by Boswell. He says: "Of the 
most remarkable masks upon this occasion was James Boswell, Esq., 
in the di-ess of an armed Corsicau chief. He entered the amphitheatre 
about twelve o'clock. On the front of his cap was embroidered in gold 
letters. Viva la Liberia ; and on one side of it was a handsome blue 
feather and cockade, so that it had an elegant, as well as war-like, 
appearance. He wore no mask, saying that it was not proper for a 
gallant Corsican. As soon as he came into the room he drew universal 
attention." The jubilee was held September 6 to 8, 1769. 

206. Scrub is a character in Farquhar's comedy, Beaux' Stratagem. 
His duties, as described by himself, were : "On a Monday I drive the 
coach, of a Tuesday I drive the plough, on Wednesday I follow the 
hounds, a Thursday I dun the tenants, on Friday I go to market, on 
Saturday I draw warrants, and a Sunday I draw beer." — Act III. 
Scene 3. On all days he was " consumedly in love." 

213. Loo was the popular game with cards in Goldsmith's time. 
" The highest card in the game of IjOO is the knave of clubs, or some- 
times the knave of the trump suit." 

215. Stow, the antiquarian, says, " At the feast of Christmas, in 
the King's court, there was always appointed, on All-Hallow's Eve 



274 NOTES 



(Oct. 31), a master of mirth and fun." The reign of the Lord of Mis- 
rule extended to the feast of Purification, Candlemas (Feb. 2). 

219. "I observed here and there many in the habits of servants, 
with a blown bladder, fastened like a flail to the end of a short stick, 
which they carried in their hands. In each bladder was a quantity of 
dried peas, or little pebbles, as I was afterwards informed. With these 
bladders they now and then flapped the mouths and ears of those who 
stood near them, of which pz'actice I could not then conceive the mean- 
ing ; it seems the minds of these people are so taken up with intense 
speculations, that they can neither speak, nor attend the discourses of 
others, without being roused by some external taction upon the organs 
of speech and hearing; for which reason, those persons who are able to 
afford it always keep a flapper (the original is climenole) in their family 
as one of their domestics ; nor even walk abroad, or make visits, with- 
out him. And the business of this officer is, when two or three or more 
persons are in company, gently to strike with his bladder the mouth of 
him who is to speak, and the right ear of him or them to whom the 
speaker addresses himself." — Gulliver's Travels, " A Voyage to La- 
puta," Chapter II. 

222. Ride si sapis, If you are wise, laugh. 

223. Dobson's Life of Goldsmith, page 172, explains that Goldsmith 
had the " substantial gratification of some four or five hundred pounds, 
to which must be added a further amount from the publication of the 
play in book form." 

224. Vous vous noyez par vanite. You injure yourself with your 
vanity. 

224. "Bedlam" is a contraction or corruption of ''Bethlehem," 
London, the name of a religious house, converted into a hospital for 
lunatics ; hence a " Bard of Bedlam " means a mad poet. 

225. Brise le miroir, etc.. Break the false mirror which hides the 
truth from you. 

238. Ex cathedra, from the chair; with authority. 

238. It is Launce of Shakespeare's Tivo Gentlemen of Verona, not 
Launcelot Gobbo of the Merchant of Venice, who charges his dog with 
a lank of sympathy. 

255. "Bens" refers to Ben Jonson. The allusion may be to those 
who gathered at the Mermaid Tavern in the days of the Elizabethan 
drama. 

257. On account of his deafness, in his later years, Reynolds had to 
use an ear-trumpet. 



EXPLANATORY INDEX 



Addison, Joseph (1672-1719) : with Richard Steele, Addison is chiefly 
knoAvn as the editor of the Spectator. The Campaign celebrates 
the victory of the Duke of Blenheim. When Addison was requested 
to celebrate the victory in verse, by the Right Honorable Henry 
•Boyle, at the solicitation of Lord Halifax and Godolphin, Earl of 
Sidney, he was living in a garret w^ three flights of stairs, over a 
small shop in the Haymarket. 

^sculapius : the fabled god of medicine. 

.ffisop : a writer of fables, often pictured in old books as unusually ugly 
and repulsive. 

Antiqua mater : the ancient mother ; here the mother of literature. 

Aristophanes : the comedian of the Greek drama. 

Armstrong, Johnny: a Scottish outlaw, famous in Scottish ballad 
poetry. Every good book of ballads contains some verses about 
him. 

Baretti, Joseph (1719-1789) : an Italian who came to England in 1750. 
Through his translations of one of Johnson's articles into Italian, 
the two became intimate, and he helped Johnson in preparing the 
dictionary. 

Berkeley, George (1685-1753) : Bishop of Cloyne, is remembered chiefly 
for his philosophical theory that the external world exists only in 
the imagination. It was he also who deprecated the spread of 
printing, because printing would help to disseminate heretical 
theories. 

Blackstone, Sir William (1723-1780) : the author of Commentaries op. 
the Laios of England. 

Boileau (1636-1711) : the French critic and poet, who was the literary 
lawgiver of his time. Through Edmund Waller he laid down 
the principles of writing followed by the school of Pope. 

Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751) : he 
published his Dissertation in 1735. His caution about reading 
party pamphlets may be applied to his own writings (for he was 
an unprincipled man) ; " Read them with suspicion, for they deserve 
to be suspected ; pay no regards to the epitaphs given, nor to the 
judgments passed; neglect all declamation; weigh the reasoning, 
and advert to facts." The basis of the thought in Pope's Essay 
on Man is found in Bolingbroke 's philosophy. 

Boswell, James (1740-1795) : James Boswell's fame rests on one book, 

275 



276 EXPLANATORY INDEX 

his Life of Johnson, but that book is the greatest book of its kind 
in all literature. He was educated for the law at the universities 
of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and was admitted to the Scottish bar 
in 1766 and to the English bar in 1786. In 1763 he met Johnson for 
the first time, and was ever after Johnson's most devoted admirer. 
Johnson became fond of him, accompanied him on a tour of the 
Hebrides, had him elected a member of the "Club" in 1773, and 
approved of him as his biographer. Johnson and Boswell 
were in company only two years, yet in that short intercourse, 
Boswell, with the assistance of Johnson, who gave his biographer 
the details of his early life, so saw into the heart and mind of his 
hero that he was enabled to write a book that has won for him the 
title of the "Prince of Biographers." See Macaulay's Essay on 
Boswell' s Johnson and Carlyle's Essay on Johnson, for contrast- 
ing views of Boswell. 

Boyd, Hugh: was overcredited with the authorship of "Junius." 

Boyle, Robert (1627-1691) : the discoverer of "Boyle's law" in chem- 
istry and physics. 

Buffon (1707-1788) : the first volume of his great natural history ap- 
peared in 1749. He may be called the father of modern natural 
history. 

Burney, Dr. (1726-1814) : a composer and historian of music. He was 
the father of Frances Burney, Madame d'Arblay, author of 
Evelina, and of the lively, gossipy Diary and Letters of Madame 
d'Arblay. 

Bute, Lord : the third Earl of Bute, John Stuart, was the prime min- 
ister of England in 1762-1763. 

Butler, Samuel (1612-1680) : the author of Hudibras, " a long and 
voluble lampoon, in which the typical Puritan is described as a 
hunchback monster, a pedantic, stubborn, and frowsy country 
justice." Butler, like Dryden, tried to set his sails to all the 
political winds of his day, but, unlike Dryden, was not suc- 
cessful in making good headway into a favorable berth. It is 
probably not true that Butler often lacked the necessaries of life. 

Cave, Edward (1691-1754) : best known as the founder of the Gentle- 
man's Magazine. Johnson spoke of him as the owner of " one of 
the most successful and lucrative pamphlets which literary history 
has on record." He was the first publisher to give Johnson regular 
employment. 

Chamier, Andrew (1725-1780) : ChamiQr, who was a personal friend of 
Johnson, was of Huguenot descent, and had been a stock broker. 
He was a man of liberal education. " He acquired such a fortune 
as enabled him, though young, to quit business and become, what 
indeed he seemed by nature fitted for, a gentleman." — Hill's 
Boswell's Johnson, with note from Hawkins's Johnson. 

Charlemont, Lord (1728-1799) : an Irish statesman and a member of 
the Club. 



EXPLANATORY INDEX 277 

Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770) : " the marvellous hoy," wrote the 
Rowley poems when he was sixteen years of age. Read pages 330- 
337 in Saintsbury's History of Eighteenth Century Literature for 
an interesting short account of the Rowley and the Ossian j)oems. 

Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of (1694-1773) : Lord Ches- 
terfield is best known by his Letters to His Son, written to train 
his boy in refined manners and good sense. It has been asserted 
that they " teach the manners of a dancing-master and the morals 
of a courtesan," but this is far overdrawn. Johnson was not far 
wrong, however, when he said, " Take out the immorality, and it 
should be put into the hands of every young gentleman." Macaulay 
wrote of Chesterfield as " the most distinguished orator in the Upper 
House and the undisputed sovereign of wit and fashion." The 
•iamous letter written by Johnson to Chesterfield, on Johnson's com- 
pleting his dictionary, is well worth reading. 

Clairon (1723-1803) : a famous French actress, much admired by Gar- 
rick and Goldsmith. Goldsmith, in the Bee, praises her for her 
power of expressing emotions by her bodily movements. Garrick 
pleased her so much by a declamatory effort that she " catched 
Garrick in her arms and kissed him." 

Cock Lane Ghost : in London in 1762, the Cock Lane Ghost was a great 
mystery. The daughter of a man named Parsons amused herself 
by rapping on a board concealed in bed. The amusement was so 
great and the belief that the house was haunted was so wide, 
that Parsons made personal use of it. He claimed that the spirit 
which haunted the house was the spirit of a woman murdered by 
a man named Kent, against whom Parsons had a personal grudge. 
The matter was ended by Kent's being vindicated and Parsons's 
being pilloried. Macaulay unjustly makes Johnson a believer in 
the story ; but as a matter of fact, Johnson investigated the hoax 
and reported it an imposition. 

Cockney Elysium : " Cockney " is the term applied to a person born in 
the city of London, and who is unhappy out of the sound of the Bow 
Bells, as Bow Church is nearly in the centre of old London. Elysium 
was the blessed fields of the dead in Greek mythology. See note 
on White Conduit House. 

Coffee Houses : clubs, which were prevalent in the days of Goldsmith, 
generally met in some coffee-house, or tavern, for the purpose of 
talking, debating, and reading the newest pamphlet or the latest 
issues of the periodicals. Here, over a "basin" of tea or coffee 
or a glass of wine, and often more substantial refreshments, the 
members indulged in criticism, gossip, and controversy. Among 
the famous houses were : the Grecian, so named from the Greek 
who owned it; Button's in Covent Garden, a favorite resort of 
Addison, Steele, Pope, and Swift; The Cocoa Tree, the resort of 
the Tory politicians ; St. James, the Whig stronghold; and Will's 
Coffee House. 



278 EXPLANATORY INDEX 

Colman, George (1732-1794) : a dramatist and theatrical manager. 

Colman, George (1762-1836) : an actor, as was his father. 

Covent Garden : originally the garden of the convent of Westminster. 
The theatre in Bow Street, near Covent Garden, was built in 1731 
and afterward was owned by Colman. 

Croker, John Wilson (1780-1857) : an editor of Boswell's Johnson, 
published in 1831. 

Dalrymple, Sir David (1726-1792) : the author of Memorials and Let- 
ters relating to the History of Britain in the Reign of Charles II. 

Diderot (1713-1784) : a French philosopher, noted chiefly as the editor 
of the Encyclopidie, a voluminous work written to exalt scientific 
knowledge. 

Drury Lane: a street in London, famous even to-day for the Drury 
Lane Theatre. It was in this theatre that Garrick began the 
Shakespearian revival in 1747. 

Dryden (1631-1700) : John Dryden was the foremost man of letters of 
the period following Milton. His dramas are not acted, and are but 
little read to-day, but his poems, especially his satires, have an 
enduring place in English letters. 

Dyer, Samuel (1725-1772) : a translator of Plutarch's Lives. Dr. Percy 
told Malone " that they all at the Club had such a high opinion of 
Mr. Dyer's knowledge and respect for his judgment as to appeal to 
him constantly, and that his sentence was final." Burke described 
him as " a man of profound and general erudition ; his sagacity 
and judgment were fully equal to the extent of his learning." — 
Prior's Malone. Dyer joined the Club in 1764. 

Eugene, Prince (16G3-1736) : the leading imperial general in the War 
of the Spanish Succession, in which he shared the honors with 
the English general, the Duke of Marlborough. He was the hero 
and the darling of the Tory party. In 1717 he besieged and took 
Belgrade, held by the Turks. 

Eutropius (fourth century a.d.) : author of a history of Rome from its 
founding to 364 a.d. 

Falstaff : the fat, witty, cowardly companion of Prince Hal, afterward 
Henry V., of Shakespeare's Henry IV. and the Merry Wives of 
Windsor. 

Fellow: in university life, afelloio is one who receives an income from 
a bequest or endowment for his expenses. A scholarship is the 
term usually applied to such assistance when given to undergradu- 
ates; 2i fellowship is applied to graduates. 

Florus, Lucius (second century a.d.) : author of a short History of 
Rome. 

Fontenelle (1657-1757) : a French writer, chiefly of philosophy. His 
life was so long that he was called upon to write about seventy 
eulogies on members of the French Academy. 

Fox, Charles (1749-1806) : a prominent English statesman and orator 
of the time of the American ReA^olution. His father was Lord 



EXPLANATORY INDEX 279 

Holland. Macaulay's Essay on Lord Holland contains interesting 
character sketches of both men. 

Garrick, David (1716-1779) : Garrick was the foremost actor of his age, 
and one of the greatest of all English actors. With Johnson, 
whose friend and pupil he was, he came to London in 1737 for the 
purpose of studying law. But he soon gave up the idea of be- 
coming a barrister to follow his natural bent. His influence on 
the stage was ever good and purifying. For a generation he was 
the leader of the English stage, and was, in a large measure, re- 
sponsible for the Shakespearian revival of his day. For his memo- 
rial at Lichfield, Johnson wrote these words: " I am disappointed 
by that stroke of death which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, 
and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure." See 
Goldsmith's lines on Garrick, page 254, 

Gay, John (1685-1732) : an English poet who left in a secret drawer in a 
chair some manuscript poems, which were discovered nearly ninety 
years after the poet's death. They were published in 1820 as Gay's 
Chair Poems. 

Giardini: an Italian violinist who became popular and wealthy in 
London. 

Gibbon, Edward (1734-1794) : author of the History of the Decline and 
Fall of the Roman Empire. 

Goethe (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) (1749-1832) : the most illus- 
trious name in German literature. His greatest work is Faust, but 
his genius covered a wide field in both prose and poetry. 

Grainger, James (1721-1766): a Scottish physician, a West Indian 
planter, and a tedious poet. 

Grattan, Henry (1746-1820) : an eminent Irish statesman and orator. 

Gray, Thomas (1716-1771) : the author of the Elegy in a Country 
Churchyard, who is considered, next to Milton, the most learned of 
all English poets. 

Grub-street: this street, which now bears the more pretentious name 
of Milton Street, was for many years the dwelling-place of hack 
writers. 

Hazlitt, William (1778-1830) : an English critic and essayist. 
Henriade " : an epic poem by Voltaire. 

Hogarth, William (1697-1764) : the most eminent painter and engraver 
of " picture dramas" of the day. Irving sufficiently describes him 
as " the moralist and philosopher of the pencil." His most famous 
works, the "Harlot's Progress," the "Rake's Progress," and 
" Marriage a la Mode," are pictures that depict vice and misery of 
low London life at that time. " The hatred of vice, the contempt 
of shams, urged Hogarth to give us portraits, perhaps more real 
than life, of auctioneers and art-charlatans, foreign adventurers, 
brutal judges, insolent and foolish lords and ladies, and of the 
immoral world in which they throve." —John La Farge. 

Holy-week : the week before Easter. 



280 EXPLANATORY INDEX 

Hume, David (1711-1776) : a Scotchman; the first historian of England 
who attempted to trace the course of English history to its causes. 
He was an ardent Tory. 

Hystaspes: Darius I was the son of Hystaspes. Seven princes of 
Persia agreed that lie should be king whose horse neighed first at 
the rising of the sun. Darius's groom contrived that his horse 
should neigh first, and so Darius was proclaimed king. 

Ishmaelite: an outcast. Ishmael's " hand will be against every man, 
and every man's hand against him." — Gen. xvi. 12. 

Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784) : Dr. Johnson, the literary dictator of 
his time, was famous as a lexicographer, essayist, critic, and con- 
versationalist. On account of his great classical erudition, his use 
of polysyllabic words and involved sentence structure, his works, 
with the exception of his Oriental tale, Rasselas, and the Lives 
of the Poets, are little read. His fame rests largely on his striking 
personality, his innate goodness, and his saving common sense. No 
man in English literature is so thoroughly known as Johnson, who 
has been presented to us as a living being in the greatest biography 
in any language, Boswell's Life of Johnson. 

Jonson, Ben (1573-1637) : next to Shakespeare, Jonson was the great- 
est dramatist of the age of Elizabeth and James I. 

Junius: in the middle of the eighteenth century there appeared a 
series of very able letters on the political conditions and politicians 
of the time, signed " Junius." It is not positively known who wrote, 
these letters, but investigations seem to point almost conclusively 
to Sir Philip Francis. 

Eauffman, Angelica (1746-1807) : a Swiss painter who resided in 
London from 1765 to 1781. Sir Joshua Reynolds was an admirer 
of her work, and it is said that he was an ardent admirer of the 
woman herself. 

Kelly, Hugh : see Chapter XXII. 

La Mancha : Don Quixote de la Mancha is the hero of Cervantes's novel, 
Don Quixote. Don Quixote was much given to making ridiculous 
sallies into the world, always with lugubrious endings. 

Langton : see page 100. 

"Lethe": a farce of Garrick's, in which a poet attempts to drown 
the sorrows of a condemned play. 

" Lusiad " : " The song of the Lusians," or the Portuguese. The Lusiad, 
the national epic of Portugal, by Camoens, describes the first 
voyages of Vasco da Gama, who sailed to India in 1497. 

Ljrttelton, Lord (1709-1773) : the author of Letters from a Persian to 
his Friend at Ispahan. " He was a virtuous politician, who rose 
to be Chancellor of the Exchequer ; he was the founder of a house 
that has never ceased to hold a responsible place in the country ; 
he was the friend of great poets and divines, and something of a 
poet himself, while his life comprised all that was elegant and 
amiable in man." 



EXPLANATORY INDEX 281 

Malagrida: a Jesuit; " was put to death at Lisbon in 1761, nominally 
on a charge of heresy, but in reality on a suspicion of his having 
sanctioned, as confessor to one of the conspirators, an attempt to 
assassinate King Joseph of Portugal." — Hill's BosweWs Johjison, 
IV., 174, note 5. "His name is become proverbial among us to 
express duplicity." — Wraxall's Memoirs. 

Mason, William (1725-1797) : the intimate friend of Gray, and the 
author of the Life and Letters of Gray. Horace Walpole wrote 
to Mason concerning the Life: "You have fixed the method of 
biography, and whoever will write a life well, must imitate you." 
— Walpole's Letters, VL, 211. Boswell took Mason's Gray as the 
model for his Johnson: "I have resolved to adopt and enlarge 
upon the excellent plan of Mr. Mason in his Memoirs of Gray." 

Mitre Tavern: in a court off Fleet Street. Fleet Street was John- 
son's "favorite street," and Mitre Tavern his "favorite resort." 

Montagu, Elizabeth Bobinson (1720-1800) : an author and a social 
leader. The five literary women whom Johnson commended were 
Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Lenox, Miss Burney (Madame d'Arblay), Miss 
Hannah More, and Mrs. Carter. Of Mrs. Montagu, he said to 
Boswell, "Mrs. Montagu is a very extraordinary woman; she has 
a constant stream of conversation and it is always impregnated ; it 
has always meaning." 

Montaigne, Michel de (1533-1592) : an illustrious French essayist. 

Newbery, John M. (1713-1767) : the man who may be called the father 
of children's books. It was for him, probably, that Goldsmith 
wrote the ever popular nursery tale of Goody Two Shoes. 

Newgate: the famous London prison, not far from St. Paul's Church. 

Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727) : the discoverer of the law of gravita- 
tion. There is no reason to believe that his powers declined to 
dimness in his old age. 

Ninon de I'Enclos: a French woman famous for her beauty both in 
youth and in old age. She lived until she was ninety. 

Northcote, James (1746-1831) : a distinguished landscape and portrait 
painter. 

Northumberland, Duke of: Sir Hugh Smithson was made Duke of 
Northumberland in 1766. His son founded the Smithsonian Insti- 
tute in America. 

Old Bailey: the principal court of London. 

Orrery, Lord (John Boyle, Lord Orrery) (1707-1762) : a writer of little 
moment and less mental caliber. He was, however, intimate with 
Pope, Johnson, and Swift. A series of letters forming a life of 
Swift, and a book of travels in Italy, are his chief contributions 
to literature. 

Ossian : the Ossian poems were a literary hoax. James Macpherson 
(1738-1796) was a Scotch schoolmaster who, in 1762, published 
Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem,, as a translation from Ossian, a 
Gaelic bard of early days in Scotland. Macpherson gained much 



282 EXPLANATORY INDEX 

glory and popularity out of the publication, while alive, and had 
the honor of being buried near Johnson in Westminster Abbey. 

Ofcway (1G52-1685) : Saintsbury, in his History of Eighteenth Century 
Literature, says that Otway's Orphan is "the first domestic 
tragedy — that is to say, the first in which royal personages do not 
hold the leading parts — which had been produced since the days 
of Elizabeth." The manner of Otway's death was pathetic in the 
extreme. He ventured out, on the point of starvation, to beg for 
bread, and " died at a baker's shop, being too weak to swallow 
the first mouthful." Irving, Goldsmith, and Carlyle evidently be- 
lieve that the public was to be blamed for its non-support of the 
dramatist ; but it is not unlikely that such sympathy is wasted, for 
there is evidence that Otway's poverty was due to his own mis- 
management and dissolute habits. 

0. S. — Old Style : after the calendar year of Julius Caesar was adopted 
it was discovered, by more accurate astronomical observations, that 
the true solar or tropical year was 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 
and 57 seconds ; whence it fell short of the Julian computation of 
365 days and 6 hours by an interval of 11 minutes, 3 seconds. 
In the course of 130 years, therefore, the tropical year began a year 
earlier than the civil, or fell a day behind it. In the time of Pope 
Gregory XIII., a.d. 1582, the vernal equinox was found to be on the 
11th of March, having fallen back ten days from the civil calendar. 
In order to restore the equinox to its former place, the 21st, Pope 
Gregory left out 10 days in October, from the 5th to the 15th day of 
that month ; whence the 22d day of December became the first of 
January, a.d. 1853, which was the first year of the Gregorian era. 
By 1751, when the English Parliament adopted the new reckon- 
ing of time, the deficiency amounted to 11 days, and now the defi- 
ciency amounts to 72 days, so that January 1 of the Old Calendar is 
January 13 of the New. Russia and Greece still use the Old Style 
Calendar. 

Pantheon : a disreputable concert hall opened in 1772. 

Paoli, General (1725-1807) : the head of the Corsican government, then 
at war with Genoa. He came to England in 1769, the year in which 
Boswell made a "fool of himself" at the Shakespeare jubilee. 
One account says that Boswell had " Paoli and Liberty " on his 
cap. 

Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718) : an Irishman, educated at Trinity College, 
Dublin ; a minor poet of some note. 

Paternoster Eow: a short street in Loudon just north of St. Paul's, 
and running into Cheapside. It was famous in the eighteenth cen- 
tury as a street of book-shops. 

Percy, Thomas (1729-1811) : the editor of Reliques of Ancient English 
Poetry; that is, ballad poetry. By descent he was connected with 
the Percy family of ballad fame. 

"Rake's Progress": one of Hogarth's "picture dramas" of eight 



EXPLANATORY INDEX 283 



scenes, showing the degeneration of a rich young man from dissipa- 
tion to madness. 

Ranelagh, Vauxhall: next to the coffee-houses and the Chibs, the 
most unique feature of eighteenth-century Eugland was the gar- 
dens, wliere the fashionable world was wont to gather to see 
extravagant and grotesque shows and dances. Chapter xxxv, 
page 209, gives a brief description of Ranelagh. Prior quotes the 
following description of Vauxhall in 1760 from Dodsley's Environs 
of London: "In the midst of a garden is a superb orchestra, con- 
taining a fine organ, with a band of music, and some of the best 
voices. In most of the boxes are pictures painted from designs of 
Hayman*' and Hogarth "on subjects of humor well adapted to 
the place. The trees are scattered with pleasing confusion : there 
ate several noble vistas through very tall trees, the spaces between 
being filled up with neat hedges ; and on the inside are planted 
Howers and sweet-smelling shrubs." See also Chapter xliii for a 
description of Vauxhall by Goldsmith. Dobson's Eighteenth Cen- 
tury Vignettes contains an interesting account of both Ranelagh 
and Vauxhall. 

Raphael (1483-1520) : the noted Italian painter. The allusion is to 
the stork standing awkwardly on one leg, in his drawing entitled 
" The Draught of Fishes." 

Reviews and Magazines: The Monthhj Revieio, a Whig paper, con- 
taining some literary miscellany, was founded in 1749, and lasted 
until 1845. Griffiths was its editor until 1803. The Critical Re- 
view, of which Smollett was the first editor, lived from 1756 to 
1817. It was similar to the Monthly Review, but was, as Irving- 
says, " a formidable Tory rival " to that periodical. Other shorter- 
lived periodicals of the day were The Rambler, The Adventurer, 
The World, and The Literary Magazine. The Idler, edited by 
Johnson, was written to continue the work of The Spectator, " to 
create a sound public taste and to foster morality and elegance in 
polite literature." The Gentleman's Magazine was founded in 
1731 as a monthly magazine of literary miscellany and news. The 
Rambler, a semi-weekly paper, edited by Johnson, lived from 
March, 1750, to March, 1752. The Adventurer (November, 1752- 
March, 1754), The Idler (April, 1758-July, 1758), were edited re- 
spectively by Hawksworth, a servile ape of Johnson, and by 
Johnson. 

Raynolds, Sir Joshua (1723-1792) : the most celebrated of English por- 
trait painters, and "the finest gentleman of his age." He 
painted the portraits of Burke, Johnson, Boswell, and Goldsmith, 
of the ''Club." His house was the centre of art and literature, 
and his own critical and literary work had no small value. His 
Discourses on Painting are highly esteemed to-day. 

Robertson, William (1721-1793) : next to Hume, Robertson was the 
most noted Scotch historian of the day. Saintsbury speaks of 



284 EXPLANATORY INDEX 

Robertson as a more careful historian than Hume. In his own day 
lie was admired for his elegant style. 

Rogers, Samuel (1763-1855) : a minor English poet (here called the 
"Nestor of British literature " after Nestor, the sage, in Homer's 
Iliad). On account of his age and wisdom, he was regarded as 
an authority in literary matters. 

" Bosciad " : Charles Churchill wrote a satire on the actors of the day, 
and called it the Rosciad, i.e., the song of Roscius, a celebrated 
Roman comedian. 

Sb. George's Day: April 23. 

Sancho Panza : squire to the chivalrous Don Quixote. He is charac- 
terized by his common sense, by a plain way of looking at things, 
and of speaking about them. Sancho's love for his master and 
his fidolity have become proverbial. 

Savage, Richard (1698-1743) : of note in this book because Johnson 
wrote his biography, and because his poem. The Wanderer, was a 
prototype of Goldsmith's Traveller. 

Scarron, Paul (1610-16()0) : a popular French burlesque writer. 

Selwyn, George (1719-1791) : a man about town and a wit of the day. 

Shirley, James (1.596-1(566) : a dramatist of little note. 

Smollett, Dr. Tobias (1721-1777) : Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett 
were the three greatest novelists of the eighteenth century. Smol- 
lett, the least distinguished of the three, is best remembered for 
his novels, Roderick Random and Humphrey Clinker, now little 
read. 

Society of Arts : founded in 1753, and afterward known as the Royal 
Society. 

Steevens, George (1736-1800) : known chiefly as a student and annotator 
of Shakespeare's plays. 

Sterne, Lawrence (1713-1768) : author of Tristram Shandy and the 
Sentimental Jouimey. 

Strephon: a shepherd lover in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia ; a stock 
name for a sentimental lover. 

Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745) : the greatest prose satirist in English 
literature. He was celebrated in church, political, and literary 
affairs. " His great genius was employed chiefly in a battle 
against the hard conditions of this life, against the dishonesty 
and selfishness of the society amid which he moved, and against 
the political opponents that he hated." " With his social instincts 
ungratified, his ambitions thwarted, his affections starved, he lived 
in constantly failing health for years, until insanity clouded his 
brain, and a lethargy which had for two years held his body inac- 
tive finally culminated in death." — A. P. Walker. 

Thrale, Henry (1724-1781) : a London brewer, of who.se house at 
Streatham, Johnson was an inmate for sixteen years. Mrs. Thrale 
was a woman of some talent. After her husband's death, she 
married an Italian musician, Gabriel Piozzi, and lived in Italy 



EXPLANATORY INDKX 285 

for several years. In 1780 she published her A?iscdote8 of Johnson, 
a companion book to iioHwell's Life of Johnson, and in 1788 slie 
issued the Letfer.s of Johnson,. She died in 1821. 

Toplady, Augustus (1740-1778) : to be n^ mo in bo red as th(! author of 
tlie sacred hymn " Kock oi' Ages," and ol other scarcely less laujous 
liymns. 

Ugolino : Ugolino, Count of Gheradesca, deserted his city, Pisa, in its 
war with Genoa in 1284. In 1288 a conspiracy was formed against 
him, and he was cast, with his two sons and two grandsons, into 
tlie tower of (Tualandi, where they all starved to deatli. Dante 
tells the story in his Infern,o, canto xxxiii. Th(f j)icturo is said to 
have been painted without a thought of Ugolino, but was so named 
when either Hurke or (Joldsmith comnnuited on the similarity 
•l)etween the painting and the description. 

Usher, Archbishop (158()-l()r)()) : an eminent Irish divine, who, before 
the days of modern science, computed that the world was made 
4004 years before Christ, 

Versailles: the town of Versailles is eleven miles southwest of Paris. 
It was here that Louis XIV. of France built the court palace at a 
cost of ,^50,000,000. 

Vertot (l()5r>-17."55) : a French historian who wrote a History of the, 
Revo/ at Ions of tha Roman Republic. 

Vesey, Elizabeth (1715-1701): "Hannah More in 1783 {Memoirs, I., 
28(5) describes Mrs. Vesey's pleasant parties. It is a select society 
which meets at her house every Tuesday, on the day on which the 
Turk's Head Club (the literary club) dine together. In the evening 
they all nuiet at Mrs. Vesey's, with the addition of such company 
as it is difficult to find elsewhere." — Hill's IJoswall's Johnson, 
HI., 424, note. *i. 

Voltaire (l(i!)4-1778) : the author of eighty volumes of history, phi- 
losophy, drama, and essays. He is generally rank(;d as the most 
brilliant of French men of letters. Goldsmith could not have met 
Voltaire in Paris, as Voltaire at this time was on one of his peri- 
odic exiles. The error in (xoldsmith's memoirs is indicative of his 
haste or carelessness. Just where he met Voltaire it is difficult to 
say — probably at Voltaire's home at Geneva. 

Walpole, Horace (1717-1707): tin-, son of the great Whig statesman 
Robert VViilj)ole, Loi'd Orford, and the author of niitny minor writ- 
ings. His literary fame rests on his C'astla of Otrunto, a romance 
of the ultra-romantic school, and on his Letters, which are valuable 
as giving light on the life and manners of his day. 

Warburton, William (1008-1770) : Bishop of (iloucester from 1759. 

White Conduit House: "White Conduit House, Islington, from the 
extreme pleasantness of its situation, for many years a very attrac- 
tive place of resort for the London p(»i)ulace in their recreative 
excursions." — Goldsmith's Works, Prior's edition, I., 37, note. 
See page 144- 



286 EXPLANATORY INDEX 

Whitehead, William (1715-1785) : appointed poet-laureate of England 
in 1758. His only claim to remembrance is that he was a poet- 
laureate, without honor or worth. 

Wilkes, John (1727-1797) : a political agitator, attacking all that seemed 
unjust to human liberty, reviling the king, belittling the adminis- 
tration, and advocating free representation to constituencies. He 
was elected to Parliament, was expelled, was reelected again and 
again, until finally in 1775 he had become a popular hero and was 
elected mayor of London. His life forms one of the interesting 
chapters in the history of the rise of modern democracy. 

Wolcot, John (1738-1819) : an English satirist who wrote Bozzy and 
Piozzi. 

Woodfal, William : the printer of the Letters of Junivs. 

Written mountains : in Goldsmith's time certain inscriptions discovered 
on the hillsides around Mt. Sinai were believed to contain impor- 
tant information concerning Biblical events. Recent intei'preta- 
tion of the signs, however, shows that they have no such value. 



CRITICAL NOTES AND SUGGESTIVE 
QUESTIONS 



Chapter I. Gather from the first paragraph what will be Irving's 
attitude toward Goldsmith's life and character. In the opening chap- 
ter, note such words as "magic gift," " fairies," " whimsical," as key- 
words. Compare the opening chapter of Irving's Life of Goldsmith 
with the first chapter of Dobson's Life of Goldsmith. What differ- 
ences do you find ? Are Irving's anecdotes pertinent? Was Goldsmith's 
early environment unusual? Compare Irving's and Goldsmith's early 
life. Why should Irving be so sympathetic in sketching Goldsmith's 
early life? Read Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, after reading this 
chapter. Reread the poem after you have read Chapter xxviii, before 
you make an estimate of the poem or of the influence of Goldsmith's 
eai-ly life upon it. Read The Traveller also soon after beginning the 
Life. 

Chapter II. Find other examples of noted men who have seemingly 
failed to profit by university training. Compare Irving, Whittier, 
Franklin, Cooper, Bryant, and Goldsmith to see if scholarship and 
learning have made them popular. Of what value was Goldsmith's 
"wandering propensity"? Many men who have not been diligent 
students in their prescribed courses in college, have been great readers. 
Did Goldsmith belong to that class ? Why should Goldsmith long for 
a " motley company " ? Verify the closing paragraph of this chapter 
as you read the rest of the book. 

Chapter III. Why should a biographer quote from the works and 
the letters of his subject? Are the letters that Irving quotes mostly 
personal letters ? Why should Irving speak of Goldsmith's " whimsical 
benevolence" on page 17? Is the instance cited by Goldsmith on page 
24 " whimsical " ? How does the letter to his mother reflect both the 
light and shadow, the humor and pathos, of his life? Does Irving 
generalize or comment much on the character and deeds of Goldsmith? 
Should a biographer attempt much explanation ? Describe Goldsmith's 
humor as you see it illustrated in the chapter. How has Irving given 
new and direct interest to this " second sally in quest of adventure " ? 

Chapter IV. Why is the thought of Goldsmith's friends and relatives 
mapping out a course of life for him, a humorous one? Does Irving 
appear to regard Goldsmith's frailties as frailties of the Irish people 
in general? What is Goldsmith's judgment of himself in the 

287 



288 CRITICAL NOTES AND SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

Bryaatou letter? Always estimate the various experiences of Gold- 
smith, as the one with the Duke of Hamilton in this chapter. Would 
an impartial or less sympathetic biographer close this chapter as 
Irving does? 

Gliapter V. When beginning this chapter it will be profitable to read 
or reread the Vicar of Wakefield, to see how Goldsmith turned raw 
experience into finished literary product. What serious facts of life 
did Goldsmith observe on this his last "sally"? Irving, in another 
chapter, calls this tour a "poetical one." Explain. How did Gold- 
smith see " both sides of the picture " of mankind ? Can humorous or 
pathetically humorous writing, teach us right conduct ? In this respect, 
compare Irving's Ichabod Crane and Goldsmith's " Vagabond." What 
advance is made in the biography in this chapter ? 

Chapter VI. Read De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium-eater, for 
a description of De Quincey's night wanderings in London. Read, in 
Macaulay's Life of Johnson, and on pages 87 and 88 of this book, about 
Johnson's coming to London. Why was London life so trying to a man 
of Goldsmith's temperament? Was London life as necessary for Gold- 
smith as for Johnson ? Read Johnson's London. Was London a " tender 
nurse" to Goldsmith? As you read the book see whether Goldsmith's 
best work was done in the town or in the country. Was Goldsmith's 
failure in dealing with the practical affairs of life due to his vanity? 

Chapter VII. Some of the most successful writers in the Reviews 
were those, who, if called upon, could write caustic political papers. 
Why was Goldsmith unfit to write such articles ? Was his judgment 
*' well instructed " enough to write general criticisms? Did Goldsmith 
have fewer and poorer chances to succeed in life than Burns ? Whittier ? 
Franklin? Were there other writers of Goldsmith's time who gained a 
foothold with less difi&culty than did Goldsmith ? Why ? Was Griffith 
the cause of Goldsmith's misfortune? Is Irving too lenient toward 
Goldsmith's failings? Do you agree with Irving that Goldsmith had 
" sound, easy good sense " ? 

Chapter VIII. To understand this chapter the tenth paragraph of 
Macaulay's Life of Johyison should be read. Had Goldsmith accom- 
plished anything in literature, that he should complain of the treat- 
ment of literary men ? Is Irving j ustified in giving in this chapter the 
extract from the Inquiry, " published some years afterward " ? 

Chapter IX. How is the letter to Jane Lawder " full of character " ? 
What circumstances in Goldsmith's life were of use in preparing the 
Inquiry? Why should he desire the Oriental appointment? What 
writing of Goldsmith's has a foreigner for the chief personage? Did 
Johnson write anything with an Oriental background? Thomas 
Moore ? Why was public attention drawn to the Orient at this time ? 
Make a summary of Goldsmith's estimates of himself as found on 
pages 35, 64, 70, 75, and elsewhere. 

Chapter X. Can you draw a reasonable conclusion, based upon 
what you know about Goldsmith, as to why the Coromandel enterprise 



CRITICAL NOTES AND SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 289 

failed ? Do you agree with Irving in condoning tlie pawning of the 
clothes? The letter in this chapter is one of the best in the book, 
and should be read with care. Is Goldsmith's judgment of youth 
and education based upon his own experiences? Apply his own 
criticisms on romances and novels to the Vicar of Wakefield. Was 
this letter written in a passing mood, or is it deeply characteristic of 
the man ? 

Chapter XI. What was there in Goldsmith's character and bearing 
that caused him to make enemies ? 

Chapter XII. Compare again the coming of Johnson and Goldsmith 
to London. Through the rest of the book you should make careful 
note of the influence of Johnson on Goldsmith. How did Johnson and 
Goldsmith differ in nature? Are Goldsmith's works more widely read 
tO'^ay than Johnson's? Why? Why did Johnson have a greater in- 
fluence in his day than Goldsmith ? 

Chapter XIII. Is Irving's reason for the slow growth of Goldsmith's 
reputation applicable to literary efforts of to-day? Name authors 
who were popular in their own day, and are still popular. Did Gold- 
smith as a writer belong to the dominant classical school of his day ? 
He has been called a transition writer between the school of Pope and 
the coming romantic school of Burns and Wordsworth. How is this 
true? Is Irving right in saying that Boswell had a " deleterious effect ' ' 
upon Goldsmith's reputation? Compare Macaulay's and Irving's 
estimates of Boswell. Try to determine whether Boswell's opinion 
of Goldsmith was an independent opinion, or an echo of Johnson's 
opinion. 

Chapter XIV. Why introduce the anecdote of Hogarth and the 
street scene? Is Irving correct in his comparison of painting and 
writing? Does he seem over-anxious to show an affinity between 
Goldsmith and Reynolds? How does Macaulay account for Johnson's 
carelessness in manners and personal appearance? How do you 
account for Goldsmith's awkwardness? Why should Irving delight 
in telling about Langton and Beauclerc? What connection has this 
description of the two men with Goldsmith? Ask yourself as you 
read, "Did Goldsmith profit by his membership in the Club ? " 

Chapter XV. Hoav does this chapter mark a transition in Gold- 
smith's career? Do the contemporary criticisms of The Traveller hold 
good to-day? How do you reconcile the statements on page 93 about 
Goldsmith's reputation, with Irving's exuberant critical citations in 
this chapter ? What effect did the publication of this poem have on 
Goldsmith's life? Read the poem to discover whether the descriptive 
or the moralizing passages are the better. Are those parts of Gold- 
smith's writings that are based upon his experiences better than those 
based upon his reading and his philosophy? 

Chapter XVI. Consider whether Goldsmith would have bettered 
his literary product had he been more " knowing and worldly." Were 
the " peculiar merits of poor Goldsmith " " little understood by the 



290 CRITICAL NOTES AND SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

biographers of the day " ? Read Little Goody Two Shoes to detect 
the " Goldsmithian " quality. What facts in Goldsmith's early life 
made him susceptible to fairy tales'? Look up the lives of the Grimm 
brothers and Hans Andersen to see if the best writers of fairy tales 
are men of genius in other lines. How did Swift's Gulliver's Travels, 
become a children's book? The abrupt ending to this chapter seems 
to indicate that even Irving has difficulty in apologizing for his sub- 
ject's failure in medicine. 

Chapter XVII. Did Milton receive as much for Paradise Lost as 
Goldsmith did for the Vicar of Wakefield :? What are the elements in 
the Vicar of Wakefield that have caused it to be "translated into 
almost every language"? Is it contradictory that a domestic novel 
like this should be written by a bachelor? From the close of the 
chapter, what do you think was the new trend of the drama ? What 
in Goldsmith's experiences and temperament fitted him to write come- 
dies in the new style ? Are Goldsmith's comedies put upon the stage 
to-day ? 

Chapter XVIII. How do you interpret the epithet " poor " Gold- 
smith, so constantly used by Irving? Is it necessary for a person to be 
a "good reasoner" to be an able talker? Goldsmith certainly had 
a wealth of experience and varied themes for conversation. Would 
another person have been able to make better use of them ? Why was 
Dr. Johnson so able in conversation? Was Irving successful as a 
public speaker? Are the anecdotes of the "intellectual collisions" 
in Goldsmith's favor? If possible, look up other conversational tilts 
between Goldsmith and Johnson in BoswelVs Life of Johnson. Why 
should Boswell speak of " honest " Goldsmith ? Is Johnson to be com- 
mended for refuting Goldsmith's attempts at argument? In this chap- 
ter, and elsewhere in the book, note the difference between Johnson and 
Goldsmith in conversation. It may be of interest to you to read Robert 
Louis Stevenson's " Talks and Talkers " in his Memoirs and Portraits. 
Dr. Henry van Dyke has a charming essay on " Talkability " in his 
Fisherman's Luck. 

Chapter XIX. How did Goldsmith profit by mingling in these " mot- 
ley circles " ? Was Irving himself a frequenter of motley company in 
his early life ? Shakespeare's comedies and comic scenes indicate that 
he also knew the motley crowd. What scenes from Goldsmith's come- 
dies or the Vicar of Wakefield may be reminiscences of this desire to 
mingle with the ordinary crowd? Is the most spontaneous form of 
literature the most enduring ? Did Irving make use of his personal ex- 
perience in his humorous writings ? 

Chapter XX. Why relate the incident of Johnson and the King at 
the beginning of this chapter ? No incident could serve better to show 
Johnson's servile Jacobinism. From what you know of Goldsmith, do 
you think his explanation, or Boswell's explanation of Goldsmith's 
silence during the conversation between the King and Johnson, the more 
reasonable ? In the exchange of letters between Goldsmith and Garrick 



CRITICAL NOTES AND SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 291 

you will note the stately style of letter-writers of that day, especially in 
the leave-taking. It would be an excellent plan to read Goldsmith's vari- 
ous letters in the book at a sitting, to get a new point of view of the man. 

Chapter XXI. Irving's description of his visit to old Canonbury 
Castle puts us in close personal touch with his subject. Irving has 
three delightful essays on other visits to homes of great authors: one 
to Stratford, the home of Shakespeare; one to Abbotsford, the home 
of Scott; and one to Newstead, the home of Byron. Was it really 
the " sturdy independence " of Goldsmith that caused him to refuse to 
write for any political party? Was he too " honest," too "indolent," 
too " ignorant," to serve a party? What English men of letters have 
served political parties with their pens? Can you name any political 
papers that rank to-day as literature? 

Chapter XXII. How do you account for Garrick's treatment of Gold- 
smith? What makes The Good-natured Man more of a closet play 
than an acting play ? Does Goldsmith's humorous work abound more 
in comical situations and incidents, or in humorous characterizations 
and happy "conceits"? Ask yourself the same question concerning 
Irving's humorous work. What were the causes of the partial failure 
of the play ? 

Cliapter XXIII. Explain the chapter title, " Burning the candle at 
both ends." Does Irving make excuses for Goldsmith's want of dis- 
cretion ? Does the humor of it all appeal to Irving ? Does this chap- 
ter make a necessary step in the biography? Does it add to your 
knowledge of Goldsmith's chai'acter? 

Chapter XXIV. Although this is a short chapter, it is an important 
one. Here we see the ennobling influence of sorrow and kinship, the re- 
membrances of early experiences, the quiet influence of home and the 
passing of many of the strong emotions, written down in moments of 
tranquillity. 

Chapters I, XXIV, and XXVIII should be read consecutively to see 
the Deserted Village in the making. 

Chapter XXV. Discuss the question Irving raises in the last sen- 
tence of this chapter. The Jessamy Bride is given much attention, 
probably too much, in the book. Read in Irving's own life of his 
affection for Matilda Hoffman, to see why Irving should be attracted 
to Goldsmith's futile love affair. Irving and Goldsmith are two of the 
most lovable bachelors in literature. 

Chapter XXVI. What necessary qualifications of a historian did 
Goldsmith lack? From the comments made by Johnson on Gold- 
smith's Rome, Avhat do you think was Johnson's idea as to the proper 
method of writing history ? Are the great histories written in a " pleas- 
ing manner" ? Was the atmosphere of Goldsmith's day conducive to 
good historical writing? Ask your teacher of history how Hume, 
Robertson, Lord Lyttelton, rank to-day as historians. Could Gold- 
smith have written a pleasing and acceptable history of his own time ? 
Note whether Johnson's criticisms of Goldsmith's work are generally 



292 CRITICAL NOTES AND SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

as kind and as considerate as his criticisms in this chapter. What 
qualifications had Goldsmith for making a natural history " as interest- 
ing as a Persian tale" ? What gives their peculiar charm to the ex- 
tracts from Animated Nature f Is there more of the poet or of the 
scientist in the extract? 

Chapter XXVII. Does Irving use the word " motley " when speaking 
of Goldsmith's character to suggest that Goldsmith was a fool in finan- 
cial matters ? Do you find a touch of vanity in this letter, or in other 
letters of Goldsmith? 

Chapter XXVIII. As Goldsmith's life and literary career centre in 
the Deserted Village, every reader of Irviug's Life of Goldsmith should 
know that poem by heart. Irving's own good sense and judgment 
have kept him from becoming rhapsodical in his criticism. He sees 
clearly the essential connection between Goldsmith's life and the en- 
during elements in the poem, and brings out the connection by two wisely 
chosen extracts. Retrace your own information about the poem and 
the author to see how Goldsmith has transformed his "motley" ex- 
perience into enduring literature. Out of the heart of the author came 
this poem which has always made a strong appeal to the hearts of men. 
What marks the Deserted Village as characteristic, in substance, of 
the new school of romantic poetry? Is it labor lost to attempt to 
identify Auburn with Lissoy? If the poem were merely local and 
personal, would it have the universal and permanent interest that it 
has ? Read Johnson's poem London, to see why it has lost caste, while 
the Deserted Village holds its popularity. 

Chapter XXIX. Was Irving well enough acquainted with the Eng- 
lish people to make the comment about " the true English travelling 
amusement"? Is Judge Day's sketch of Goldsmith's looks and man- 
ners tempered too much with friendship ? Note that he speaks well of 
Goldsmith's "solidity of information" and of his talking "without 
premeditation." Have you had contradictory evidence on these 
points? 

Chapter XXX. What blunder in Goldsmith's early life do you recall 
when you read of his ludicrous mistake at the house of the Duke of 
Northumberland? Do Goldsmith's blunders lessen your respect for 
him? What effect did his blunders have on his companions and his 
victims ? What works of Goldsmith did his friends commend the most ? 
Do those judgments stand to-day? 

Chapter XXXI. Read one or two of Chatterton's poems, as the 
Ballade of Charitie, to see why Goldsmith should have admired the 
" marvellous boy." Why should Goldsmith have persisted in his cre- 
dulity? Has Goldsmith's History of Eiigland "kept its ground " in 
English literature ? If Goldsmith was a " sore Whig," can you account 
for it? Could Goldsmith write an impartial history of England? 
What misstatements of historical facts does he make in his Deserted 
Village 9 For the answer to this last question, read the notes to the 
poem in Hales's Longer English Poems. 



CRITICAL NOTES AND SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 293 

Chapter XXXII. This is another chapter of anecdotes which adds 
but little to our information, but much to our understanding of Gold- 
smith. We certainly enjoy reading about Goldsmith's romping with 
the children, and we can readily imagine the pleasure they had with 
the good-natured man. The question may well be raised whether Gold- 
smith's biographer has overdone the relating of anecdotes about the 
Jessamy Bride. 

Chapter XXXIII. Justify the introduction of the first three topics 
in this chapter. Cite other instances given by Irving when Goldsmith 
had the better of Johnson in argument. Is there any inconsistency in 
superstition among intelligent men? Could this whole chapter have 
been omitted without loss? Does it add to our information about 
Goldsmith? 

Ckapter XXXIV. Is the ease with which Goldsmith made acquaint- 
ances worth noting ? Did he make enemies with eqiial alacrity ? What 
contrasts do you note in Goldsmith's treatment of Cradock and M'Don- 
nell? How do you account for Goldsmith's desire to retreat to the 
countryside? Was he a man of the town as Johnson was? If you 
read She Stoops to Conquer, notice whether the country life at Hyde 
Lane probably influenced any passages in this comedy. Is She Stoops 
to Conquer played on the stage to-day? 

Chapter XXXV. Was Burke's joke on Goldsmith commendable in 
Burke? Does the joke "establish the alleged vanity of Goldsmith," 
or is Irving overdesirous of exonerating Goldsmith in this respect? 
Apparently, Goldsmith profited by his own blunders, to the extent of 
working some of them up into literature; but that he ever learned 
anything from such jokes as Burke's is not so apparent. It is not im- 
probable that his friends thought their jokes might make for instruc- 
tion as well as for amusement. Is it evident that the jokes played 
on Goldsmith were prompted by a malicious spirit? Irving had an 
opportunity here to tell in a cutting way how Boswell's own vanity 
caused him to " make a fool of himself," but he probably thought 
Boswell's foolishness was apparent enough in his treatment of Gold- 
smith. How was the Malagrida joke " a picture of Goldsmith's whole 
life " ? Irving's attempt to defend Goldsmith's self-consciousness is 
entirely overbalanced by the numerous incidents that he gives, showing 
too plainly that Goldsmith was extremely self-conscious, if not vain. 

Chapter XXXVI. A supplementary reading of Irving's Christmas 
stories will be found interesting. Goldsmith's happy " hits " in his 
"occasional" poems, as quoted in this book and as printed in his 
works, are well worth reading. What are the requirements for writing 
a good "occasional" poem? Our own American poet. Holmes, was 
usually happy in writing such poems. The concluding paragraph of 
this chapter is one of Irving's pleasing bits of imagination. 

Chapter XXXVII. When Johnson said that the great end of comedy 
is to make an audience merry, did he take into account such plays 
as The Merchant of Venice? The fact that Cumberland says that 



294 CRITICAL NOTES AND SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 

*• all eyes were upon Johnson " is probably as good proof as we have 
of Johnson's power to make or mar a piece of literature at that time. 
What treatment had Goldsmith received before, from friends or foes, 
which should make him so agitated on this occasion ? Summarize the 
influences explained in this chapter, that tended to make Goldsmith so 
susceptible to excitement. 

Chapter XXXVIII. Was a newspaper attack a thing of more 
moment in Goldsmith's day than it is in ours ? Does Goldsmith's letter 
balance the attack on Evans? Certainly "poor Goldsmith's" con- 
duct appears ridiculous enough as related in this chapter. Does John- 
son censure the contest with Evans, or Goldsmith's letter to the public ? 
Would Irving have been justified in omitting the incidents of this 
chapter ? Does Irving consider the letter a vindication ? 

Chapter XXXIX. If Johnson "blew hot as well as cold, according 
to the humor he was in," can we depend on his judgments of Gold- 
smith? Does Irving delight as much in belittling Boswell, as he does 
in extolling Goldsmith ? Which of the two estimates of Goldsmith, 
that Johnson expresses to Boswell, is the truer? What lines from the 
Deserted Village are allied in thought to Goldsmith's assertion that 
the human race degenerates as luxury increases ? Compare Reynolds's 
and Johnson's opinious of Goldsmith. In the debate between Johnson 
and Goldsmith, do you see a reason why Goldsmith should be called 
" honest " ? Is Johnson logical in this argument with Goldsmith? In 
this chapter Irving, with loving kindness, sets Goldsmith in sharp con- 
trast to both Boswell and Johnson. 

Chapter XL. If Goldsmith was vain, what epithet can you apply to 
Johnson's assertion that Goldsmith had not travelled over Johnson's 
mind ? Why was it an honor to be a member of the Club ? Was 
Goldsmith a " clubable man" ? Does Irving give a candid and un- 
biassed opinion of Boswell in this chapter? Do you suppose that jokes 
were played on Goldsmith alone ? Summarize Irving's opinion of Bos- 
well. If possible, read Carlyle's and Macaulay's opinions of the same 
men in their essays on Johnson. Why should Boswell, if he were so 
foolish a man, be able to write the best biography ever written? 

Chapter XLI. Is it improbable that Boswell, who gives us so good 
a picture of Johnson, gives us a less truthful picture of Goldsmith? 
Were his gleams of Goldsmith's good sense " unintentional and per- 
haps unavoidable"? Have Goldsmith's biographers, who have been 
" less prejudiced and more impartial," been able to contradict the 
general statements and incidents concerning Goldsmith made by Bos- 
well ? Was Boswell's judgment perverted whenever his favorite, John- 
son, was likely to be found in the wrong? Irving's comments on the 
stories as told by Boswell are well worth discussing. 

Chapter XLIL Was it " sturdy independence "or an indolent dis- 
position that made Goldsmith undeserving of a pension ? In this chap- 
ter we catch a glimpse of Goldsmith's religion, if it may be so called. 
His depreciation of Beattie's Essays and his praise of Voltaire seem to 



CRITICAL NOTES AND SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 295 

show that he was not in agreement with the orthodox religion of the 
day. His comparison between Beattie and Voltaire is hardly so much 
a matter of foresight as a matter of irritation. 

Chapter XLIII. Here Irving sketches, with loving i^athos and humor, 
Goldsmith's last Christmas. Nowhere in the life of Goldsmith are we 
more inclined to lament his poverty and to forgive his heedlessness. 
Only a writer who had drawn a Rip Van Winkle and an Ichabod Crane 
could write the Barton story without some sharp words of censure for 
his hero's conduct. It was the winter of discontent in Goldsmith's 
life, but Irving would make of it a joyous summer. 

Chapter XLIV. Discuss the quotation from Sir Walter Scott. Many 
great books have been written while the author was in ill-health or 
weired down by sorrow. Bryant translated Homer's Iliad and 
Odyssey while grieving for his dead wife; Longfellow translated 
Dante's Divine Comedy alter his wife's death; Stevenson was in ill- 
health all his life ; Poe was certainly dogged by as many pains as was 
Goldsmith ; Pope's life was " one long disease " ; Milton had his family 
troubles; and Dante was a "man of sorrows." Was Goldsmith's life 
so much oppressed by "sickness, sorrow, or the pressure of unfavorable 
circumstances " that any or all of them can be urged as an excuse for 
his partial failure ? The Jessamy Bride's request for a lock of hair has 
an interesting counterpart in Irving's own life, of which he must have 
been thinking when he wrote this chapter ; for in his own desk, at the 
time of his death, was found a lock of Matilda Hoffman's hair. 

Chapter XLV. Discuss the question whether Goldsmith's frailties 
should be remembered or forgotten. Verify Irving's assertion that 
Goldsmith's heart yearned for domestic life. Compare Goldsmith's 
and Burns's religious life. Gather from Irving's concluding remarks 
his explanation of Goldsmith's failures and successes. 



MAP OF LONDON. 




London in 1780. — Co vent Garden and Westward, 

By employing a ruler to determine the boundaries of the lettered and numbered 

sections, the following places may be located : — 



Button's Coffee House, J, 8. 
Cock Lane, 7?, 4. 
Covent Garden, J, g. 
Drury Lane, I., 7. 
Drury Lane Theatre, K", 7. 
Fleet St., P,6. 
Grub St., IV, 2. 
Johnson's Homes : 

Exeter St., K, 8. 

Woodstock St., Hanover Sq., B, 8. 

Castle St., //, 8. 

Strand, H, J, 10. 

Holbourn, N, 4. 



Fetter Lane, O, 5, 6. 

Gray's Inn, M, 3. 

Inner Temple Lane, N, 8 

Johnson's Ct., Fleet St., P, 6. 

Bo.t Ct., Fleet St., P, 6. 
Leicester House, F, 9. 
Literary Club : 

Gerrard St., F, 9. 

St. James's St., C, 12. 
Mitre Tavern, Fleet St., P, 6. 
Newgate, S, 5. 
Royal Exchange, X, V, 6. 
St. James's Sq., D, 12. 



From A. P. Walker's edition of Macaulay's " Life of Johnson." 



I W I VQ I tv I CO I O 




298 GENERAL QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 



GENERAL QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 

Find illustrations of Goldsmith's humor as related by Irving. Find 
illustrations of Irving's humor in the book. Irving is often indignant 
at the way in which Goldsmith's friends treated him; find examples. 
Summarize the instances of Goldsmith's heedlessness. Cite incidents 
in Goldsmith's life that he used in his writings. What opinion of him- 
self is apparent in Goldsmith's letters? Make a list of Goldsmith's 
writings, and give Irving's estimate of each. Discuss the question 
whether Johnson's friendship was of any real benefit to Goldsmith. 
What traits of character were common to all the Goldsmiths ? W^hat 
is the principle on which Irving writes Goldsmith's life ? Compare the 
opinions of Goldsmith held by the various members of the Literary 
Club? What characteristics of Goldsmith appeal most strongly to 
Irving? Why should Irving be called the American Goldsmith? Did 
Irving have any of the frailties of Goldsmith ? Cite instances where 
Irving apologizes for or excuses Goldsmith's conduct. Are the scenes 
always warranted ? 

Summarize Irving's opinion of Boswell. What is Irving's opinion of 
Johnson? What was Goldsmith's opinion of Johnson? What was 
Johnson's opinion of Goldsmith? Give Boswell's opinion of Gold- 
smith. Give an account of the Literary Club. Give illustrations of 
Goldsmith's " sound, good sense." How did Goldsmith extract " sweets 
from that worldly experience which to others yields nothing but bitter- 
ness"? Summarize Goldsmith's continental tour, and explain again 
how it was a " poetical tour." How does Irving explain the popularity 
of Goldsmith's writings? Is Goldsmith more lovable for his writings 
or for his personality ? What chances had Goldsmith for making his 
life pecuniarily successful ? How did Goldsmith's early environment 
influence his later life? Summarize the influence upon Goldsmith 
of the following persons : his uncle Contarine, his cousin Jane, his 
father, his brother Henry, his schoolmaster Thomas Byrne, the Jes- 
samy Bride. What are some of the epithets that Irving applies to 
Goldsmith? Discuss the following points: 1. "Discretion is not a 
part of Goldsmith's nature": 2. "His disposition for social enjoy- 
ment " ; 3. " He is the continual dupe of his benevolence and his trust- 
fulness in human nature " ; 4. "The innate purity and goodness of his 
nature"; 5. " A nature like Goldsmith's . . . doesnot flower if deprived 
of the atmosphere of home " ; 6. " His faults, at the worst, were but 
negative, while his merits were great and decided." 



MAR 9 1904 



